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INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES 



HOW TO STUDY 
AND TEACH HISTORY 



WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE 
HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 



BY 

B. A. HINSDALE, Ph.D., LL.D. 

PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF TEACHING 

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 

AUTHOR OF 

SCHOOLS AND STUDIES, THE OLD NORTHWEST, AND THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT 

AND EDITOR OF THE WORKS OF JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 




D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1894 



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THE LIBRARY 
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Copyright, 1893, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



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EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The present volume belongs to the fourth division of 
works included in this series. It relates to the art of 
education, and comes under the first subdivision of that 
head— namely, methods of instruction.* There is no 
branch of educational literature of more importance than 
that which treats of methods of instruction. I might 
add, too, that the method of teaching history, as con- 
trasted with the methods of teaching mathematics or 
geology, or other branches of natural science, even in- 
cluding biology, has a peculiar importance of its own. 
For history deals with the will power of man and moves 
chiefly in the province of motives and purposes, and only 
secondarily in the province of mere mechanical causation. 

While it is important to study the theater ' of action 
and to understand the problems presented by land and 
water, by mountain ranges, deserts, rivers, climates, and 



* The scheme includes works under four general heads : 

I. History of Education. 

II. Criticisms of Education, mostly written by educational reformers. 

III. Systematic Works presenting the Theory of Education. 

IV. Art or Practice of Education. 

The fourth division— Art or Practice— includes : (1) Books on the 
method of instruction ; (2) On methods of government and discipline; (3) 
On methods of organizing schools, etc. ; (4) Supervision of schools, 
(v) 



vi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

soil, yet these and all circumstances of the environment 
belong only to the category of means and agencies which 
man as a self-active being has learned to use — or will 
learn how to use. They are the stuff which he is to work 
up into patterns according to his ideals. The material 
world is the quarry in which we may help ourselves to 
whatever can serve to realize our inner aims. Civilization 
is the conquest over material nature by the organization 
of human society according to ideals of justice and be- 
neficence. Justice returns the deed upon the doer ; but 
beneficence, philanthropy, loving-kindness, or grace, as 
this moral sensibility is called, seeks to bring good to the 
doer in place of the evil that he sends forth, and conse- 
quently prefers to accept pain and suffer from discom- 
moding when it may thereby help an evil doer to grow 
into righteousness and goodness. Righteousness and 
goodness are the ideas that the Hebrew sacred writings 
have given to mankind as the essential attributes of the 
Divine Being. As righteous, He holds men responsible 
for their actions and returns their deeds upon them ; as 
goodness, however, He shows tenderness toward sinful 
and erring humanity and is eternally forgiving- — thus 
suffering and bearing evil in this world in order that He 
may nurture self-active beings potentially in his image 
into the realization of his image. 

This Hebrew idea adopted into our civilization is the 
essence of history, because it is at once the cause of civili- 
zation and the measure of it. In proportion as a people 
organize institutions that realize righteousness and good- 
ness, or what is the same thing, justice and mercy, they 
achieve civilization. 

History is an account of this progress, and Hegel has 
well said, in his Introduction to the Philosophy of His- 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. yji 

tory, that " the theme of world history is the onward prog- 
ress into the consciousness of freedom." * The steps to 
this insight are, first, man's self-activity ; second, the re- 
ligious idea that Gk>d is perfect self -activity ; third, that 
perfect self-activity is moral ; f fourth, moral freedom, be- 
ing the divine form and image, man's destiny is to grow 
into it ; and hence, fifth, the measure of progress in history 
is this development into the consciousness of freedom, or 
into clear insight into what is divine and eternal, and the 
use of the earth to celebrate this consciousness and make 
ib perpetual. For this consciousness can never be fully 
achieved except through the conquest of nature for spirit- 
ual uses ; nor except through a completed natural science 
which will reveal all provinces of matter and force and 
life as progressive steps in the development of free indi- 
viduality — mineral, plant, animal, man, being the four 
chief stadia. The world in time and space, according to 
this religious theory, is a cradle for the nurture of free 
beings, beginning so low down as to include insensate 
rocks and the very ether itself. 

I have mentioned purposely this religious ideal in 
order to bring out in sharpest contrast that view of his- 
tory which delights to ally it most closely with natural 
science, and to find the explanation of all human events 
in the structure and forces of the material environment. 
According to the materialistic school of historians there 
is no such thing as free will ; each being is determined to 
be what he is by the totality of conditions. 



* Page 24, 3d ed. : "Die Weltgeschichte ist der Fortschritt im Bewusst- 
seyn der Freiheit." 

t The law of morality is to act in such a way that one's deed does not 
infringe on the freedom or self-activity of others ; any such infringement 
would be self-contradiction, and would be self-destructive in the end. 



viii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

I am not disparaging the study of man's environment, 
however, but only pointing out the extremes to which 
the reaction against the former somewhat abstract view 
has led. The old theory was made by men intoxicated 
with the great idea of individual freedom, and as a con- 
sequence it slighted the material factor of civilization. 
It was reluctant to admit the existence of such a factor. 
The reaction that has set in from the province of natural 
science proposes to ignore man's freedom and take ac- 
count only of the determining circumstance, which sur- 
round individuals and groups of men. 

This contradiction is not, however, difficult to recon- 
cile. Looking at the goal of human progress it is easy 
to see that man is on his way to conquer and reduce to 
his service the powers and products of Nature. The 
amount of human energy expended in compelling Nature 
to his use is far greater than that expended directly in 
attaining consciousness of himself and in realizing moral 
self-control. Man works for food, clothing, and shelter 
far more hours than for science, art, religion, and civil 
government. 

He therefore spends most of his energy in reacting 
against his material environments, and is thus said to be 
enslaved by it. The materialists say that he is under 
necessity. But they ignore the obvious fact of self- 
activity. Man is acted upon, but he reacts on the exter- 
nal through his native energy. His reaction consists 
chiefly in turning out or dispossessing the control of Na- 
ture and in seizing control for his own uses. He turns 
Nature's forces against Nature's purposes and makes his 
environment acknowledge his sway. 

Man's self-activity presupposes as its basis what Kant 
calls a transcendental freedom — a radiating center of pure 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. i x 

self-activity not dependent at all on anything in time 
and space except for its manifestation. All Nature, all 
facts and events, belong to the secondary order of use, but 
not to the primary order of free causality ; all things are 
for man's use, but man himself is a transcendental free- 
dom that can dispense with the world and all that it con- 
tains by simply refraining from any act of manifestation. 
He can dispense with food and drink, letting his body 
starve ; food and drink therefore do not determine him 
in any such sense as his will determines him. They can 
come only so far as to be secondary agencies in realizing 
his motives. 

A direct efficient cause necessitates a change in some- 
thing else, but a motive or purpose (called a "final 
cause ") does not constrain an actor or doer ; its presence 
in the mind is the product of one free act (namely, that of 
abstraction, which thinks of something else in the place 
of what is), and then its realization by the will is another 
free act, by which the soul affirms itself and encroaches 
on the independent existence of its environment by sub- 
stituting its own purposes for those of Nature. 

This factor of transcendental freedom is the soul of 
history, but of course it reveals itself or realizes itself 
only in modifying its environment to adapt it to human 
uses. In the frozen zone the Eskimo has fashioned him- 
self a hut of snow and ice, using the product of cold to 
exclude the cold. The environment does not create the 
food, clothing, and shelter of the Eskimo. It is he, the 
self-active, who has reacted against it and forced va- 
rious products out of their natural purposes into his own. 
Given his environment, and we can see and measure his 
amount of reaction against it — we can see how much he 
has conquered it. His conquest is the measure of his en- 



x EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

ergy, and relatively the measure of the resistance to hu- 
man energy. 

But in proportion to man's inner development of ideas 
he is able to advance in the conquest of the environment 
and usurp the natural directive forces of the physical 
world. 

With the reactive power of the Algonquin tribes the 
use of the environment was inconsiderable compared with 
that of the Anglo-Saxon. An ocean as an environment 
excluded the savage, but it was a good road to the Euro- 
pean. 

When man acts on Nature his products have two fac- 
tors — the natural stuff or material and the modification 
or use forced on it by human will. The former factor is 
contributed by the environment, the second factor arises 
in " transcendental freedom." 

Now it is evident that history has two researches to 
make, the first one an inventory of the environment, as 
complete as may be made of its things and forces ; the 
second, an inventory of the people, including physical and 
intellectual traits and ideals. 

The antecedents of the American settlers had already 
revealed in Europe what degree of reaction they possessed 
against environments of land, water, and climate. It had 
shown their ideals and their command of means to realize 
them. It had shown the growth of those ideals through 
the gradual assimilation of the purely spiritual ideas de- 
rived from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Greek literature, 
and the Roman political and social forms. 

A civilization has its highest phase in the religious 
convictions of its people, revealed in its church, its litera- 
ture, and its science ; its second phase in the political 
form of the nation, including its legislative, executive, 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. x i 

and judicial functions. The third phase of its civilization 
next in order from the highest is its industrial system and 
its method of utilizing the features of its material en- 
vironment not merely for food, clothing, and shelter, but 
more especially for rapid and frequent intercommuni- 
cation between its own citizens and with foreign , peoples 
collecting and diffusing knowledge. 

The geographical environment of the American conti- 
nent has not materially modified the development of civ- 
ilization already on its course of evolution when the 
emigrants were leaving their European homes for this 
country ; we have developed further the ideas of Protes- 
tant Englishmen, Dutchmen, Germans, and French Hu- 
guenots of the seventeenth century, and we have taught 
their ideas to other immigrants that have come to live 
among us. We have gladly availed ourselves of the dis- 
coveries of science to carry forward the conquest of Nature 
and make it an indifferent matter where the citizen makes 
his home ; whether North or South, East or West, he can 
command the productions of all sections and of all the 
world at a very cheap rate, thanks to the aid of steam 
on railroad and river. 

In fact no civilization was ever before so indifferent to 
its natural environment, and so confident in its ability to 
create an environment of its choice. 

The study of the environment has therefore become a 
sort of inventory of products of Nature which are to serve 
as raw material for human ingenuity to transmute into 
articles of use. Moreover, our civilization is continually 
lessening the effect of our immediate environment by 
making present all distant environments through the ma- 
chinery of transportation. 

History is a window of the soul, as I have often called 



x ii EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

it,* that looks out upon the deeds of the race. It shows 
man engaged in the work of revealing what is essential in 
his inward nature and what he makes real in his institu- 
tions — the family, civil society, the state, the Church. 

The study of our own national history is first in order, 
but it can not be carried very far without involving us in 
the great European movements that led to the discovery 
and colonization of America. Nor can mediaeval or mod- 
ern European history be understood except through an 
investigation of the three peoples — Greeks, Eomans, and 
Hebrews — that furnish the three strands which combine 
to make modern civilization. 

In the work of Dr. Hinsdale before us the reader will 
find the safe guidance of an author who honors and appre- 
ciates at their true value the two factors of history, the 
material and the spiritual. The teacher will derive essen- 
tial assistance from the hints which crowd its pages, 
pointing out the discriminating marks that enable him to 
select the significant and to pass lightly over the unim- 
portant. 

W. T. Harris. 

Washington, D. C, November 2, 1893. 
* How to Study Geography (in this series), Editor's preface, p. vii. 



AUTHQK'S PKEFACE. 



The last generation has seen a great growth of inter- 
est in history, and particularly so in the United States. 
Evidences of this fact are the increased production of his- 
torical literature of all kinds, the application of more sci- 
entific methods to historical investigation, the growth of 
historical societies in number, prosperity, and influence, 
and especially the greatly augmented attention that is 
given to history as a branch of general education. 

The change in the colleges and universities is very 
marked. A college or university can not be named that, 
thirty years ago, employed a single professor exclusively 
in historical teaching ; now there are a number of such 
institutions that require the united labors of several men 
to do the work. There has been a similar if not an equal 
growth of interest in the secondary and elementary schools. 
In fact, it was only a few years ago that the States first 
began to put the History of the United States on the list 
of studies required to be taught in the common schools. 

Nor is the change made in the schools limited to the 
quantity of the work that is done ; in respect to subject- 
matter and methods of teaching it is perhaps equally 
pronounced. Here, however, there is reason to think that 
the gain is greater in the higher schools than in the lower 
ones. At least, it is the general opinion of competent 

(xiii) 



x iv AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

judges that history is one of the studies that are poorly 
taught, as a rule, in the schools below the college. The 
reasons for this appear to be that only a short time has 
elapsed since the new emphasis was placed upon the sub- 
ject, that it is commonly taught by teachers who are not 
prepared for the work (on the theory that almost anybody 
can teach history), and that history presents some peculiar 
difficulties to the teacher. 

The aim of this book is practical. In writing it, I 
have sought to help students and teachers who will read 
it with attention. It is not indeed practical in the nar- 
row mechanical sense of the word ; no effort is made to 
tell the teacher just what he shall teach or just how he 
shall teach it. The aim is rather to state the uses of his- 
tory, to define in a general way its field, to present and to 
illustrate criteria for the choice of facts, to emphasize the 
organization of facts with reference to the three principles 
of association, to indicate sources of information, to de- 
scribe the qualifications of the teacher, and finally to illus- 
trate causation and the grouping of facts by drawing the 
outlines of some important chapters of American history. 
If it be objected to these studies that they belong to his- 
tory itself rather than to a book on teaching history, the 
obvious reply is that they make the subject more con- 
crete. The frequent criticism on pedagogical books and 
lectures, that they are general and abstract, often betrays 
a low mental plane on the part of the critic, but this is 
not always the case. There can be no question that even 
good teachers, in such discussions as the present one, re- 
quire a great deal of concrete illustration. 

While the book contains much matter that should, in 
my opinion, interest teachers of history in colleges, I have 
written it with the needs of elementary and secondary 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xv 

teachers more particularly in mind. Others will decide 
upon my success ; but I may fairly plead as qualifications 
for writing it a considerable knowledge of students and 
teachers gained in schools and institutes, some patient 
study of history itself and some experience in teaching it, 
some attention to its pedagogical aspects, and particularly 
some service as a lecturer on teaching history in institutes, 
summer schools, and in the college and university. 

It has not been found possible so to divide the subject 
as wholly to avoid touching more than once upon certain 
parts of it. Such, however, is the value of reasonable 
iteration that this can hardly be urged as a fair criticism. 

B. A. Hinsdale. 
University of Michigan, 

October 26, 1893. 



GENEKAL BIBLIOGEAPHY 



References will be found accompanying the snccessive chapters. 
It is thought best, however, to present a general bibliography, com- 
prising for the most part works of a general character to which it 
is desirable that teachers of history should have constant access. 
The bibliographies preceding the chapters relate to special subjects. 

While the English language is very rich in historical literature, 
it is comparatively poor in works relating to the study and teaching 
of history. For example, of the sixty-eight numbered titles found 
in Dr. Hall's Bibliography of Education under the head of History 
and Political Science, only some twenty are in English, while a ma- 
jority of these are either manuals, guides, or articles prepared for 
the periodical press. In fact, most of the pedagogical literature 
relating to the subject must be sought in magazines, educational 
journals, pamphlets, and proceedings of educational associations. 
Upon the whole, it must be said that the professional literature re- 
lating to the subject is now rapidly increasing. 

I. C. K. Adams. — A Manual of Historical Literature. Compris- 
ing Brief Descriptions of the Most Important Histories in English, 
French, and German, together with Practical Suggestions as to 
Methods and Courses of Historical Study, for the use of Students, 
General Readers, and Collectors of Books. Omitting the subheads, 
the chapters are entitled : Introduction, On the Study of History, 
Universal Histories, Histories of Antiquity, Histories of Greece, of 
Rome, of the Middle Ages, of Modern Times, of Italy, of Germany, 
of France, of Russia and Poland, of the Smaller Nationalities of 
Europe, of England, and of the United States. This work is the 
most valuable of its kind that American scholarship has produced. 

II. H. B. Adams.— The Study of History in American Colleges 

(xvii) 



X viii GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

and Universities. A Circular of Information of the Bureau of Edu- 
cation. Dr. Adams aims to exhibit the origin, development, and 
present status of history in the colleges and universities of the 
United States. The institutions treated at greatest length are Har- 
vard, Yale, Cornell, and Johns Hopkins Universities, the University 
of Michigan, and Columbia College, though some others are in- 
cluded. A chapter is devoted to history and political science in the 
Washington High School. 

III. E. H. Bunbuby. — A History of Ancient Geography among 
the Greeks and Romans, from the Earliest Ages to the Fall of the 
Roman Empire. Two volumes, with twenty illustrative maps. 

IV. Dr. E. A. Freeman. — Few historical writers can be studied 
by advanced students and teachers with more advantage than Dr. 
Freeman. This is due in part to the diversity of his subjects, to 
the thoroughness of his treatment, and to the variety of forms into 
which he has thrown his studies, but largely to his method and 
style, which is always strong and clear, with plenty, and sometimes 
an excess, of emphasis on the main points. Viewing his works from 
a pedagogical standpoint, the following titles may be given : (1) The 
Historical Geography of Europe, 2 vols. Vol. I., Text ; Vol. II., 
Maps. Introduction : The Geographical Aspect of Europe, The Ef- 
fects of Geography on History, and The Geographical Distribution 
of Races. The chapters bear the following titles : Greece and the 
Greek Colonies, Formation of the Roman Empire, The Dismember- 
ment of the Empire, The Final Division of the Empire, The Begin- 
ning of the Modern European States, The Ecclesiastical Geography 
of Western Europe, The Imperial Kingdoms, The Kingdom of 
France, The Eastern Empire, The Baltic Land, The Spanish Penin- 
sula and its Colonies, and The British Islands and Colonies. The 
volume of maps is not properly an historical atlas, but is intended 
to show boundaries of states and changes of political geography. 
(2) Methods of Historical Study. Eight Lectures read in the Uni- 
versity of Oxford, with an Inaugural Address entitled The Office of 
the Historical Professor. The subjects of the lectures are: His- 
tory and its Kindred Studies, The Difficulties of Historical Study, 
The Nature of Historical Evidence, Original Authorities, Classi- 
cal and Medieval Writers, Subordinate Authorities, Modern Writ- 
ers, and Geography and Travel. (3) Comparative Politics. Six 
Lectures Read before the Royal Institution. (4) The Unity of His- 
tory. The Rede Lecture before the University of Cambridge. (5) 



GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. x j x 

The Chief Periods of European History. (In Nos. 4 and 5 Dr. Free- 
man has developed his favorite ideas of historical unity and conti- 
nuity.) (6) The Growth of the English Constitution. (7) Good 
examples of the author's method, as well as good historical work, 
may be found in the following essays : The Relations between the 
Crowns of England and Scotland, The Franks and the Gauls, The 
Continuity of English History, The Holy Roman Empire (First 
Series) ; Race and Language, The Byzantine Empire (Third Series) ; 
Historical Cycles and Augustan Ages, The Growth of Common- 
wealths, The Constitution of the German Empire, and The House 
of Lords (Fourth Series). Freeman's General Sketch of History is 
one of the best. In his essay on Lord Macaulay, Dr. Freeman re- 
marks: "It is for others to judge whether I have learned from 
Macaulay the art of being clear ; I at least learned from Macaulay 
the duty of trying to be clear.'' He says he learned of him that to 
be clear a writer must (1) " avoid involved, complicated, parenthet- 
ical sentences " ; (2) " avoid sentences crowded with relatives and 
participles"; (3) and, upon this he lays great stress, "never to be 
afraid of using the same word over and over again, if by that means 
anything could be added to clearness or force." He very justly re- 
marks that Macaulay " never goes on, like some writers, talking 
about the 'former' and the 'latter,' 'he,' 'she,' 'it,' and 'they,' 
through clause after clause, while his reader has to look back to see 
which of several persons it is that is so referred to." He might have 
added, with equal truth, that Macaulay never, like Gibbon, writes 
history allusively, assuming that the reader has the facts already in 
his possession, and that it is the author's business merely to dis- 
course or comment upon them ; but that, on the other hand, Macau- 
lay always looks his facts squarely in the face, and proceeds to state 
them in a straightforward manner, a virtue that is also exemplified 
by Dr. Freeman himself. 

V. H. Gannett. — Boundaries of the United States and of the 
Several States and Territories, with a Historical Sketch of the Ter- 
ritorial Changes. Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, 
No. 13. 

VI. S. R. Gardiner. — A School Atlas of English History. 

VII. G. S. Hall.— Methods of Teaching History. The first edi- 
tion of this work contained Dr. Diesterweg's valuable treatise, In- 
struction in History, but it has been excluded from the revised edi- 
tion, and is now published separately. The contents of the book are 



xx GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

the following : Introduction, Methods of Teaching American History, 
Practical Methods in Higher Historical Instruction, On Methods of 
teaching Political Economy, Historical Instruction in the Course 
of History and Political Science at Cornell University, Advice to an 
Inexperienced Teacher, A Plea for Archaeological Instruction, The 
Use of a Public Library in the Study of History, Special Methods of 
Historical Study, The Philosophy of the State and of History, The 
Course of Study in History, Roman Law, and Political Economy at 
Harvard University, The Teaching of History, On Methods of 
teaching History, On Methods of Historical Study and Research in 
Columbia University, Physical Geography and History, Why do 
Children dislike History? Gradation and Topical Method of His- 
torical Study, Part L, Historical Literature and Authorities, Part 
II., Books for Collateral Reading, Part III., School Text-Books, 
Supplement, History Topics, Bibliography of Church History. 
These chapters are the work of distinguished specialists, and the 
book is one of great value for the student and teacher. 

VIII. A. B. Hart. — Epoch Maps illustrative of American History. 

IX. E. F. Henderson. — Select Historical Documents of the Mid- 
dle Ages. 

X. Alex. Johnston. — History of American Politics. Third Edi- 
tion Revised and Enlarged by Professor Sloane. A book that made 
its author a reputation. 

XI. J. J. Lalor.— Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Econ- 
omy, and United States History. The articles on American History 
contributed to this Cyclopaedia by the late Alexander Johnston are 
remarkable for clearness of insight and felicity of statement. 

XII. E. Lavisse— General View of the Political History of Eu- 
rope. An admirable book for the teacher who can grasp its bold 
generalizations. 

XIII. T. MacCoun— A Historical Geography of the United 
States, Historical Charts of the United States. 

XIV. C. Ploetz.— Epitome of Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern 
History. 

XV. H. W. Preston.— Documents illustrative of American His- 
tory, 1606-1868, with Introduction and References. 

XVI. F. W. Putzger— Historischer Schulatlas zur Alten Mitt- 
leren und Neuer Geschichte. 

XVII. E. Reclus. — The Earth and its Inhabitants. 

XVIII. N. S. Shaler. — Nature and Man in America. 



GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. xx i 

XIX. W. Stubbs. — The Study of Mediaeval and Modern History. 
Seventeen Lectures delivered in the University of Oxford. Every- 
thing that Bishop Stubbs has written, apart from its historical 
value, has pedagogic merit. The following lectures may be particu- 
larized : I. Inaugural. II.— III. On the Present State and Prospects 
of Historical Study. IV. On the Purposes and Methods of Histor- 
ical Study. V. Methods of Historical Study. VL-VII. On the 
Characteristic Differences between Mediaeval and Modern History. 

XX. J. Wlmtsor. — Narrative and Critical History of America: 
Vol. I. Aboriginal America. -II. Spanish Explorations and Settle- 
ments from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century. HI. English 
Explorations and Settlements in North America, 1497-1689. IV. 
French Explorations and Settlements in North America, and those 
of the Portuguese, Dutch, and Swedes, 1500-1700. V. The English 
and French in North America, 1689-1763. VL-VII. The United 
States of North America. VIII. The Later History of British, 
Spanish, and Portuguese America. This monumental work, prepared 
by specialists on the co-operative plan, is less valuable for its narra- 
tive than for its critical portions. For students who can handle 
such an apparatus, its critical essays, bibliographies, catalogues and 
descriptions of maps, and editorial notes are invaluable. 

Had I seen W. J. Ashley : An Historical Introduction to English 
Economic History and Theory, The Middle Ages, and Part II., The 
End of the Middle Ages, before writing Chapter III., I should have 
mentioned those excellent works in that place. I can only regret that 
Winsor : Cartier to Frontenac, a Study of Geographical Discovery 
in the Interior of North America in its Historical Relations, 1534- 
1700; with full Cartographical Illustrations from Contemporary 
Sources, announced but not yet published, some of the proof sheets 
of which I have been permitted to examine, did not appear before 
my own book was written. It will no doubt meet a felt want of 
students in American history. 

Reviewing Chapter III. now that it is stereotyped, I am impressed 
that not enough is there said of the value to teachers of history of 
pictures and other graphical illustrations, maps excepted. A well- 
chosen stock of photographs or plates of historical places, monu- 
ments, scenes, buildings, works of art, and men, can be used to ex- 
cellent advantage, particularly in the early stages of historical study 
and teaching. The same may be said of casts and models as of 



Xxii GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

statuary and buildings. Pictures in a book even have their value. 
That excellent writer Professor Alexander Johnston was certainly 
in error when he protested that " maps in abundance " are the " only 
legitimate embellishment of a school history." For an example of 
what pictures may do for an historical work that admits of such 
illustration, I may refer to the illustrated edition of Green's Short 
History of the English People, which has been prepared in accord- 
ance with the wish of its author to have " English history interpreted 
and illustrated by pictures which should let us see how men and 
things appeared to the lookers-on of their own day, and how con- 
temporary observers aimed at, representing them." This idea has 
been carried out by the editors with excellent judgment and taste 
as far as the publication of the edition has proceeded, with the re- 
sult that The Short History is now a " pictured page " in a double 
sense. 



CONTENTS. 



GHAPTJSB PAGE 

Editor's Preface v 

Author's Preface xiii 

I. — The Educational Value of History . . .1 

II. — The Field of History 18 

III. — Sources of Information . . . . .__ 27 

IV. — The Choice of Facts 42 

V.— Methods of Teaching^ 53 

VI. — The Organization of Facts 67 

VII.— The Time Relation in History: Chronology . 75 

VIII. — The Place Relation: Geography ... 92 

IX. — Cause and Effect in History . . . .101 

X. — Physical Causes that act in History . .110 

XL— Human Causes that act in History . . . 127 

XII. — The Teacher's Qualifications .... 138 

XIII. — Historical Geography: The Old World . . 153 

XIV.— Historical Geography: The New World . .174 

XV.— North America in Outline 192 

XVI.— The Colonization of North America . . . 204 
XVII. — The Struggle between France and England 

in North America . . . . * . • 219 
XVIII. — A Conspectus of the American Revolution . 231 

XIX.— The War of 1812 245 

XX.— The Territorial Growth of the United States . 253 
XXI.— Phases of Industrial and Political Develop- 
ment 277 

XXII.— The Slave Power 297 

XXIII.— Teaching Civics 314 

(xxiii) 



HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH 
HISTORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 

References. — Formal discussions of the educational value of his- 
tory, or at least thorough ones, are hardly to be found in the Eng- 
lish language. Valuable remarks, however, will be found in the 
following sources : 

Bolingbroke : Letters on the Study and Use of History ; Diester- 
weg: Instruction in History (I. The Meaning of History, II. On the 
Use of History) ; Milton : Tractate on Education ; Locke : Thoughts 
on Education ; Carlyle : Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (History) ; 
Macaulay: Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (History, Hallam's 
Constitutional History of Europe, Mackintosh's History of the Rev- 
olution in England, 1688, and Mitford's History of Greece) : John 
Morley : Critical Miscellanies, Second Series (Popular Culture) ; Em- 
erson: Essays (History); Dr. Thomas Arnold: Lectures on Mod- 
ern History (Inaugural Lecture) ; Lecky : The Political Value of 
History, A Lecture ; Spencer : Education (I. What Knowledge is 
of most Worth ?) ; Wells : The Teaching of History in Schools, An 
Oxford Extension Lecture ; Stubbs : The Study of Mediaeval and 
Modern History (see particularly I. and II.) ; Howell : Education, I. 
(History in its Relation to Practical Life) ; Birrell : Obiter Dicta (The 
Muse of History) ; C. K. Adams : Manual of Historical Literature 
(Introduction, On the Study of History); Schaff: History of the 
Christian Church, I. (General Introduction), History of the Apos- 
tolic Church (General Introduction to Church History) ; Guizot : His- 



2 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

tory of Civilization (passim) ; Jay : Papers of the American Histor- 
ical Association, V., Nos. 1, 2 (The Demand for Education in Ameri- 
can History). 

The pedagogical writers deal with the subject from their own 
point of view. Bain : Education as a Science, VIII. ; Compayre : 
Theoretical and Practical Pedagogy, Part II., Chap. V.; Currie: 
Principles and Practice of Common School Education, XII. ; Fitch : 
Lectures on Teaching, XIII. ; Klemm : European Schools, II., III. 

Why should we teach the history of the United States 
in the schools of the country ? The question is part of a 
larger one, Why teach history at all ? And this question 
can not be answered without taking some account of the uses 
and values of studies in general. These may be divided into 
four groups. 

First, the instrumental studies are those that are used in 
carrying on other studies and in other similar mental work. 
Writing is an instrument of impartation, and also an instru- 
ment of record. It is the art preservative of arts. Reading, 
on the other hand, is an art of acquirement. It unlocks the 
printed page. Notation, numeration, and the other funda- 
mental rules of arithmetic are also instrumental ; and the 
same may he said of drawing, musical notation, and the 
various kinds of symbolism employed for different purposes. 
These studies or arts have a certain value in themselves, 
but they are primarily tools for further acquisition or im- 
partation. 

Secondly, some studies give us knowledge that is directly 
useful in practical affairs. These are the guidance or in- 
formation studies. While the instrumental studies look to 
further acquirement, these find their uses in the duties and 
activities of real life. As far as they go, they tell us what 
to do and what i ^t to do. They inform the mind. Some of 
them are preparatory to other studies, but this is only a sec- 
ondary reason for carrying them on. They all have disci- 
plinary value, but this fact does not determine their clas- 
sification. Into this group fall such studies as geography, 
physiology and hygiene, and many more. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 3 

Thirdly, the disciplinary studies exercise and so develop 
or strengthen the mental powers. Some of them lead on to 
other studies, as arithmetic to algebra; but they are not 
pursued primarily for this reason. Some of them have 
guidance value, but this is not their characteristic function. 
The disciplines form the mind, and this fact determines their 
classification. Into this group fall the mathematics, science, 
and language. 

Fourthly, culture is the slowly maturing fruit of a silent 
feeding of the soul upon nourishing ideas. While discipline 
looks to volume of mental power, culture looks to its kind. 
Culture is the tone of power rather than its amount or in- 
tensity. It is a qualitative rather than a quantitative word. 
And the culture studies are those that conduce to such 
results. Literature and art are typical studies of this group. 

Of the many remarks that this mapping out of studies 
suggests, perhaps the most obvious is that the several groups 
overlap one another. There is discipline in the instrumental 
and information studies ; information and guidance in the 
disciplinary studies ; and so on. In fact, if we were to 
make a close analysis, we should base it on the elements of 
studies rather than on studies considered as units. A further 
observation is that studies belonging to the same group are 
by no means equal in respect to the amount of .value that 
they possess. They differ widely in this respect. It should 
also be remarked that the value of a study is relative to the 
pupil, as respects both the character of his mind and his 
stage of mental advancement. One person may get most 
discipline, for example, out of science, another most out of 
language ; while arithmetic belongs to an early stage of 
mathematical study, calculus to a late one. But the discus- 
sion of these questions belongs to a treatise on Educational 
Values. The division of studies into the instrumental, the) 
disciplinary, the guidance, and the culture groups, with the' 
explanatory observations offered, is all-sufficient for the ( 
present purpose. 

The further observation should be added that man's na- 



V 



4 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

ture is complex ; lie lias not merely an intellect to be formed 
and furnished, but also a sensibility to be affected and a will 
to be energized. 

It is now necessary to test history by these criteria — in 
other words, to determine the nature of its effects upon the 
mind. Nor will this be sufficient ; we must also estimate, 
approximately at least, the amount or quantity of educa- 
tional value wherever it arises. But properly to reach these 
ends we must consider what history is. 

1. The staple or subject-matter is facts. This staple does 
not differ in kind from the " practical knowledge "or " useful 
information " so much prized by the practical man. Service- 
able knowledge about the things going on in the world 
when picked up by observation, gleaned from the press, or 
gathered in conversation, is what Dr. Fitch calls u fact lore" ; 
similar knowledge of what has gone on in the world, when 
learned from books and not from tradition, is history. A 
journal or newspaper presents a transcript of current life, a 
history a transcript of past life. 

History, then, deals with man in his proper human sphere 
or capacity. It is knowledge of the workings of his intellect, 
feelings, and will, especially as these workings reveal them- 
selves in objective facts — laws, cities, battles, religions, and 
the like/ (It is therefore moral knowledge — knowledge of 
the play and activity of man's spiritual nature. 

Evidently, there is the widest difference between history 
and mathematics or logic in two respects. The first in its 
elementary form is a fact study ; the other two begin with 
definitions and axioms and proceed by logical deduction. 
History moves in the all-important field of moral freedom ; 
mathematics and logic, in the field of necessary inference. 

2. Historical material must be elaborated and combined. 
Historical facts by themselves are not history. They must 
be worked up ; or, to use a better figure, they must be or- 
ganized — that is, be brought together and integrated with 
reference to their relations. 

3. History also tests its own results ; it seeks to verify 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 5 

its own facts and conclusions. In order to do this, it must 
take account of its methods and processes of investigation. 
The reflective treatment of historical method falls, indeed, 
to the philosopher; hut its essential nature and practical 
application must also engage the attention of the historical 
student. 

I. From the foregoing account it is manifest that his- 
tory has great guidance value. As information, we may 
well hesitate before we assign to any school study a higher 
rank. In a great number and variety of matters experi- 
ence is the lamp to a man's feet and the guide to his path. 
No doubt oral knowledge immediately influences his con- 
duct to a greater degree ; but in the long run history is the 
great channel that conveys to him the past experiences of 
the race. In politics, in religion,* in morals, in education, 
and in economical, social, and industrial life it is indispen- 
sable. This is why Cicero called history "the witness of 
times, the light of truth, and the mistress of life " ; and why 
Diodorus styled it " a handmaid of Providence, a priestess of 
truth, and a mother of life." Hereafter something will be 
said of the periods, epochs, and ages of history, and of the 
profound influence that the idea of evolution has recently 
exerted in modifying the ways in which it is written and 
taught;. here it is necessary to observe that no man, or gen- 
eration, or nation begins life anew, but that historical move- 
ment is necessarily uninterrupted and continuous. In the 
words of Dr. Schaff : u The present is the fruit of the past 
and the germ of the future. No work can stand unless it 
grows out of the real wants of the age and strikes firm root 
in the soil of history. No one who tramples on the rights 
of a past generation can claim the regard of its posterity. 



* " While of all studies in the whole range of knowledge the study of 
law affords the most conservative training, so the study of modern his- 
tory is, next to theology itself, and only next in so far as theology rests on 
a divine revelation, the most thoroughly religious training that the mind 
can receive." — Bishop Stubbs. 



(5 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

History will disregard him who disregards her." That is, 
no man who sets at naught the lessons that history trans- 
mits to him can hope to transmit influence to the future. 

Bolingbroke quotes Dionysius, " History is philosophy 
teaching by examples." Moreover, it is the only channel 
through which philosophy can directly instruct or influence 
a majority of mankind. The typical fact or story of the 
historian will make a lodgment in minds that the generali- 
zations of the philosopher can never enter. 

" Truth embodied in a tale 
Shall enter in at lowly doors." 

It is the old distinction between the concrete and the ab- 
stract, the particular and the general, example and precept. 

The practical value of history is a commonplace. A 
few of the many testimonies to its use may be transcribed. 

Milton. Children are to know the beginning, end, and reasons 
of political societies, and to dive into the grounds of law and legal 
justice. 

Quizot. History is a great school of truth, reason, and virtue. 

Locke. I recommend it to one who hath well settled in his mind 
the principles of morality, and knows how to make a judgment on 
the actions of men as one of the most useful studies he can apply 
himself to. There he shall see a picture of the world and the na- 
ture of mankind, and so learn to think of men as they are. There 
he shall see the rise of opinions, and find from what slight and 
sometimes shameful occasions some of them have taken their rise, 
which yet afterward have had great authority and passed almost 
for sacred in the world, and borne down all before them. There 
also one may learn great and useful instructions of prudence, and be 
warned against the cheats and rogueries of the world, with many 
more advantages which I shall not here enumerate. 

Carlyle. Clio was prefigured by the ancients as the eldest 
daughter of Memory, and chief of the Muses; which dignity, 
whether we regard the essential qualities of her art, or its practice 
and acceptance among men, we shall still find to have been fitly 
bestowed. History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 7 

first distinct product of man's spiritual nature, his earliest expres- 
sion of what can be called thought. . . . Let us search more and 
more into the past ; let all men explore it as the true fountain of 
knowledge, by whose light alone, consciously or unconsciously em- 
ployed, can the present or the future be interpreted or guessed at. 

Macaulay. Many truths, too, would be learned, which can be 
learned in no other manner. As the history of states is generally 
written, the greatest and most momentous revolutions seem to come 
upon them like supernatural inflictions, without warning or cause. 
But the fact is, that such revolutions are almost always the conse- 
quences of moral changes, which have gradually passed on the mass 
of the community, and which ordinarily proceed far, before their 
progress is indicated by any public measure. An intimate knowl- 
edge of the domestic history of nations is therefore absolutely neces- 
sary to the prognosis of political events. A narrative, defective in 
this respect, is as useless as a medical treatise which should pass by 
all the symptoms attendant on the early stage of a disease,, and men- 
tion only what occurs when the patient is beyond the reach of 
remedies. 

Morley. It is the present that really interests us ; it is the pres- 
ent that we seek to understand and to explain. I do not in the 
least want to know what happened in the past, except as it enables 
me to see my way more clearly through what is happening to-day. 
I want to know what men thought and did in the thirteenth cen- 
tury, not out of any dilettante or idle antiquarian's curiosity, but be- 
cause the thirteenth century is at the root of what men think and 
do in the nineteenth. 

Mr. Morley goes too far. 'While history is at bottom a 
guidance study, it still does much more for the mind than 
simply to furnish it some practical lessons. Professor Seeley 
comes nearer the truth when he says, " History should not 
merely gratify the reader's curiosity about the past, hut 
modify his views of the present." 

II. While slight attention suffices to show that history 
has disciplinary value, some well-directed thought is re- 
quired to discover how great and varied this value is. 

1. Taught even in the poorest way — that is, by dint of 
iterating and reiterating unorganized facts — it trains the 
3 



8 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

memory ; taught philosophically — that is, care being taken 
wisely to choose and properly to organize the facts — it yields 
to no other subject in mnemonic value. It has been said 
that history is a fact study ; it will be shown hereafter that 
its facts are readily capable of complete organization by 
means of those great associating activities — time, place, and 
cause and effect. 

2. All that has been urged concerning the memory will 
be admitted. But that history is an equally valuable disci- 
pline of the imagination has not been as generally per- 
ceived. History is man-picturing, as geography is earth- 
picturing. At this point teachers and writers have made 
great mistakes. Only too often have they assumed that to 
teach this subject nothing more is necessary than to lodge 
in the memory masses of dry and unrelated facts — dates, 
names, statistics, and the like ; whereas, it is rather reveal- 
ing to the mind's eye the whole movement that constitutes 
the life of a man, a city, or a nation, or some selected portion 
of such movement. No mind can take in such a scene as 
Caesar's death, the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or the appear- 
ance of Maria Theresa with her youthful son before the 
Hungarian nobles, without the active employment of his 
imaginative faculties ; and much less such complicated 
scenes and series of historical transactions as the Seven 
Years' War or the growth of the United States. For this 
purpose an active imagination is as necessary as in painting 
a battle- scene on canvas. What power is called for even to 
glance over the field surveyed by Gibbon in the Decline 
and Fall of the Eoman Empire, and how valuable is the 
resulting discipline ! To a pupil of a dull and wingless 
mind the river of time is but a name, as the Amazon is 
only a line of ink on a sheet of paper. 

- 3. But history does far more for the mind than merely 
to exercise the powers of representation ; it is also a valu- 
able discipline of the thinking faculties. 

First, analysis is involved in the recognition of the facts 
with which we deal. Complex facts must be resolved into 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 9 

simple ones. Many facts called simple are really complex* 
and must be analyzed before they can be understood. Ar- 
nold's treason is a fact, but one composed of many minor 
facts. Our Civil War is a fact, but one that sums up volumes 
of history. History makes an equally strong appeal to the 
faculty of comparison or judgment. Events and characters 
are a constant challenge to the balancing power of the mind. 
This is strikingly true of such writings as Plutarch's Paral- 
lel Lives, and also in some degree of the simplest historical 
compositions. Then judgment passes into reasoning or 
thinking proper. . Here the characteristic mental act is in- 
ference, or the drawing of conclusions from premises. If 
the study consists of the mere committing to memory of 
facts, it will do little for any of the logical powers ; but 
studied philosophically, due attention being paid to the dis- 
covery of relations and the criticism of method, it becomes 
a noble exercise of thought. Nicely to observe chrono- 
logical connections and geographical conditions, carefully to 
search out causes, is thinking no less than solving mathe- 
matical problems. This is why Bishop Stubbs contends that 
history is a good school of the judgment. Thus, while his- 
tory is primarily a fact study and not a logical study, it is by 
no means destitute of valuable logical elements. The argu- 
ment on this point can not, however, be fully stated, until 
we take account of the nature of historical subject-matter. 

As remarked above, historical knowledge is moral knowl- 
edge. Mathematical studies deal with certain data and their 
method is demonstration. They start with definitions and 
axioms that are intuitively perceived, and proceed by neces- 
sary inference to inevitable conclusions. There is no gath- 
ering of facts, no balancing of opposite arguments, no halt- 
ing or hesitation. There can be no looking at the other side, 
because there is no other side. Uncertainty is an impossible 
state of mind. Very different are the problems of practical 
life, springing out of the relations of human beings. Very 
different the transaction of human business. Here we ac- 
cumulate data, weigh the force of opposing evidence, recon- 



10 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

cile contradictory views, and at last reach probable conclu- 
sions. No merchant, manufacturer, or ship-owner can dem- 
onstrate that a given venture will be successful. Generals 
can not certainly predict the issue of battles and campaigns ; 
if they could, battles would not be fought or campaigns be 
waged. Politicians are not absolutely sure that canvasses 
and elections will turn out so and so. And so it is with the 
teacher, the preacher, and the moralist. 

In historical matters the process of making up one's 
mind is a kind of moral bookkeeping : some items are en- 
tered on the credit side and some on the debit side of the 
ledger, and then a balance is struck between them. Hence 
it is that, as one has said, " the most important gift, after all, 
of a citizen in such a profession as politics, or law, or medi- 
cine, or teaching, or war, is ability in the selection of the 
premises from which the solution of the various problems 
of life is to be extracted. In fact, soundness of judgment 
and clearness of perception in collecting and arranging these 
premises is a large part of each man's or woman's work in 
the world." The moral world is, indeed, governed by laws 
fixed and unalterable : what a man sows, that he also reaps, 
is the fundamental fact ; but a large majority of its situa- 
tionsjand problems, and all its difficult ones, combine oppo- 
site and confusing elements. 

Now, mathematical and scientific discipline enables the 
mind to deal with those subjects, both numerous and im- 
portant, into which demonstration enters, but does not nec- 
essarily enable it to handle the elements of probability, or 
human questions. On the contrary, it may even unfit the 
mind for such work. As the writer just quoted remarks : 
" The mathematician's data are all provided for him with 
the utmost precision, and he is forbidden to add thereto or 
take away therefrom one jot or tittle. Consequently, it is 
possible to be a great mathematician indeed, and be at the 
same time a very ordinary person in most other fields of 
mental activity, and especially in what may be called, using 
the term in its largest sense, the transaction of human busi- 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. H 

ness." It has also been said that an exclusive study of bio- 
logical science "may incapacitate one for what is of all 
things most practical, namely, historical reasoning." Hence 
we must resort to some other source than mathematics or 
science for this kind of discipline. And when we remem- 
ber that historical knowledge is moral knowledge ; that its 
subject-matter is the doings of human beings ; in a word, 
that it moves in the wide field of freedom and so of proba- 
bility, we discover that we have in history the very disci- 
pline that we need. 

As the author of several well-known historical text-books 
says, " The object of teaching history is not to cram with 
facts and dates (useful and indeed necessary as these are), 
but to awaken thought, and especially to teach the habit of 
thinking intelligently about the political events of our own 
and other countries." A second writer speaks of "that in- 
sight into character, that training of judgment and sym- 
pathy to which the detailed study of a historical special 
subject may help " the student. Still a third tells us that his- 
tory embraces " to a great extent the principles on which the 
every-day life of the world around us is being conducted. " 

But there is even more involved in the matter than has 
yet appeared. To the mere perception of an object — that is, 
its recognition as present to the mind — apperception adds 
its inward digestion and assimilation; or, as one has said, 
" We identify the object, or those features of it which were 
familiar to us before; we recognize it; we explain it; we 
interpret the new by our previous knowledge, and thus are 
enabled to proceed from the known to the unknown, and 
make new acquisitions ; in recognizing the object we classify 
it under various general classes ; in identifying it with 
what we have seen before, we note also the differences 
which characterize the new object, and lead to the definition 
of new species or varieties." * It is impossible to exaggerate 

* Dr. W. T. Harris. Preface to A Text-Book in Psychology, by Her- 
bart, International Education Series. 



12 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

the importance of our present knowledge as a means to 
further acquisition ; and yet many teachers seem not to ap- 
preciate, or not fully to appreciate, the relation between the 
two. 

Now, a young person on admission to the world of man 
is immersed in a sea of facts wholly different in their nature 
from the facts of the material world. They are facts of the 
human mind, facts of the intellect, and, what are still more 
difficult, facts of the sensibility and the will ; and the most 
important question concerning his education is, How has 
this education prepared him for this new world? Reference 
is made, of course, to the time when the youth assumes a 
separate place in the social body, independently of parent or 
tutor. It may be said that this step is progressively taken, 
and not all at once ; also, that antecedent life is the best 
possible training for work in the new sphere, which is in 
fact but an extension of the old sphere ; but the fact still 
remains that the youth requires a careful discipline under 
the hand of a competent teacher in those studies which look 
immediately to social activities. And among these studies 
history must be inscribed. 

It may be objected that historical questions are not practi- 
cal questions ; that they come from books and documents, 
and not from the haunts of living men instinct with thought, 
passion, and will. There is truth in this view ; no proper 
school subject is just like real life, while history can be made 
almost as abstract as mathematics itself. The reply is, that 
no other school subject, save possibly certain forms of litera- 
ture, comes so near to real life, and that the dry abstractne£3 
so often complained of is mainly the fault of the author and 
the teacher. If the teacher deals with human beings, and 
not merely with names, dates, and other items of fact, there 
will be no lack of interest. It should also be observed that 
the fact just maintained is to a degree a point of advantage. 
Both history and politics are great educative powers, but 
history has this advantage over politics, that it enlists less 
passion and prejudice, and so is a better school of the judg- 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 13 

ment. On a similar ground Bishop Stubbs argues that 
ancient and mediaeval history surpass modern and recent 
history as such a discipline. And yet he truly says, " The 
subject-matter of modern historical inquiry has peculiar ad- 
vantages for the training of the powers most constantly in 
exercise in a practical generation.' 1 

III. On this division of the subject a few words will suf- 
fice. Mr. Matthew Arnold tells 11s that the great source of 
culture is the best things that have been thought and said. 
Why not add, " and done " ? But whether we include deeds 
as well as words and thoughts in the formula or not, argu- 
ment is not necessary to show that history enriches and 
adorns the mind with noble ideas. Its natural affiliations 
are not with mathematics or science, but with literature, 
which the great writer just named considered the true source 
of culture. There is a truth lurking in the Greek conception 
of the Muse of History. 

The idea that there are studies which, on account of their 
peculiar influence on the mind, may appropriately be called 
humanity, or the humanities, originated in antiquity. Says 
Aulus Gellius: " Humanitas — that is, instruction in good 
arts, the which whosoever truly take to and seek after are 
in very deed most human. For the caring for this knowl- 
edge and its discipline out of all living things is given to 
human beings only ; and therefore hath it been called hu- 
manitas." The humanities are the man-studies; they liber- 
alize the mind, freeing' it from prejudice, narrowness, selfish- 
ness. History is one of the group, and in some aspects the 
noblest of the group. " The real use of traveling to distant 
countries and of studying the annals of past times," says 
Macaulay, " is to preserve men from the contraction of mind 
which thqse can hardly escape whose whole communion is 
with one generation and one neighborhood, who arrive at 
conclusions by means of an induction not sufficiently copi- 
ous, and who therefore constantly confound exceptions with 
rules and accidents with essential properties." And again: 
"The student, like the tourist, is transported into a new 



14 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOEY. 

state of society. He sees new fashions. He hears new 
models of expression. His mind is enlarged by contem- 
plating the wide diversities of laws, of morals, and of man- 
ners." 

IV. History furnishes motive power as well as guidance. 
It is oar or sail, and not merely chart and rudder. Men 
who are chosen as models, or who are imitated without con- 
scious choice, furnish impulse as well as a pattern to those 
who imitate them. This is the great reason why moral ex- 
ample is so effective. To the common mind, there is far 
more energy in a man or a life than in an idea or a creed. 

One of the best known forms of motive power is the 
patriotic sentiment or love of country. And it is mainly 
at the altar of history that patriotism feeds her fires. The 
patriotic orator or poet indeed invokes the inspiration of the 
mountains and rivers, the vales and hills, the firesides and 
battlefields, of the fatherland or the mother country; but 
this is only because these material monuments are the im- 
perishable symbols of the deeds and thoughts of men that 
are associated with them. It was not the plain of Marathon 
that expanded the soul of Demosthenes, but the generous 
souls that perished there in the tremendous struggle that 
Greece waged against the barbaric power of Asia. It is not 
the Concord turf that fires the heart and brain of the patriot, 
nerves his will, strengthens his purpose, or renews his hope, 
but the memory that 

" Here once the embattled farmers stood 
And fired the shot heard round the world." 

As Mr. Lincoln said at Gettysburg, what the soldiers who 
fell in that great strife did, and not what he or others might 
say about it, makes that name immortal. The flag, be it the 
Union Jack, the tricolor, or the Stars and Stripes, is not the 
piece of parti-colored silk ; it is the national emblem for 
which patriots have suffered and died. What charms the 
traveler visiting foreign countries is not always, or perhaps 
commonly, the scenery considered as plain or valley, sea or 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 15 

mountain, but the human associations with which these are 
invested. As a great geographer * has said : • 

The admiration with which travelers behold Greece is due, above 
all, to the memories attaching to every one of its ruins, the smallest 
among its rivulets, and the most insignificant rock in its seas. 
Scenery in Provence or in Spain, though it may surpass in grace or 
boldness of outline anything to be seen in Greece, is appreciated 
only by a few. The mass go past it without emotion, for names like 
Marathon, Leuctra, or Platasa are not connected with it, and the 
rustle of bygone ages is not heard. 

No people were ever more patriotic than the Jews ; with 
them, love of country has often passed beyond enthusiasm 
into fanaticism. And what is the cause of this extraordinary 
fervor ? Far more than anything else it is the stress laid 
on the national history as the means of forming the youth- 
ful character. Not only in the family and in the school, 
but in the synagogue, the study of the great poets, warriors, 
prophets, and rulers of Israel has been strongly emphasized. 

Of late much attention has been paid to teaching patriot- 
ism in the schools of our country. The spectacular means 
so frequently resorted to serve a certain purpose, but in the 
long run the great means of teaching patriotism must be 
history and literature. Study of the times that tried men's 
souls tends to form souls that are capable of enduring trial. 

Education should have respect to all the powers of the 
mind. It should aim at developing all the faculties of 
the perceptive, representative, and reflective groups. More 
than this, it should, as far as practicable, exercise them upon 
subjects appropriate to prepare them for dealing with all the 
great groups of activities. So much will be admitted, t 

* Eeclus : The Earth and its Inhabitants, vol. i, 38, 1882. 

t Discussing the points to he aimed at in teaching history, Mr. J. Wells, 
of Wadham College, Oxford, sums up as follows : 

"1. Of course, to educate our children. 

" 2. To give them some idea, so far as possible, of their duties as citizens; 
to make them, in Milton's words, ' steadfast pillars of the state.' 



16 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

It is quite unnecessary to enlarge upon the general ob- 
servation that, if history is made the noble educational agent 
which has been described, it must be properly studied and 
taught. But to a single point some remarks may be directed. 

Since the elements of history are facts to be remembered, 
the student from first to last relies more upon his memory 
than the student of mathematics or the sciences. Again, 
history is the storehouse of human experience, the mirror 
of past ages. It is therefore the typical study as respects 
the conservative faculties of the mind and the conservative 
tendencies of society. At this point it is that a word of 
caution needs to be spoken. If the facts of history are 
taught simply or mainly to be remembered ; if the teacher 
considers the pupil's mind only a receptacle to be filled ; if 
the student's sole ambition is "to know" a great deal of his- 
tory — then the powers of analysis, comparison, and infer- 
ence will be but feebly developed. Nay, more; the mind 
will take on a conservative cast, facing backward rather 
than forward, and so be unfitted for useful initiative in prac- 
tical affairs. Rightly studied, history has a strongly sober- 
ing effect upon the mind, in which fact consists much of its 
value ; taught as a mnemonic exercise, it becomes a burden 
and an obstacle to progress. No country is, ' or perhaps 
can be, more thoroughly saturated with historicalism than 
China. " A Chinese memorial," it has been said, -' is noth- 
ing if not historical ; nor has any argument a chance of 
acceptance which is not based upon precedent." What 
China is, I need not pause to tell. The results are all the 
worse if history is regarded as a necessary evolution, in which 
the individual will counts for nothing, because history be- 
comes then a bar to free individual and social movement. 



" 3. To make them love England, to use the phrase of Macaulay, ' as the 
Athenians loved the city of the violet crown.' 

" 4. To make them interested in those hits of Old England which are 
always round them in huil dings, in institutions, in offices." — The Teaching 
of History in Schools, London, 1892, 16. 



THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF HISTORY. 17 

Germane to the subject also is the undoubted fact that an 
exclusive study of one's own country, especially when the 
student is narrow-minded to begin with, tends to conceit. 
Witness the enormous complacency of the Chinese. Hap- 
pily, an efficient corrective is furnished by general history, 
and particularly by the careful study of other countries. 
Here comes in that mental enlargement, that acquaintance 
and sympathy with other lands and ages, which entitles 
history to rank as one of the humanities. 

The question may be asked, Why preface a book on teach- 
ing history that is designed to be practical with a disserta- 
tion on its educational uses ? The question is pertinent, 
especially as the answer will show that the practical and the 
theoretical can not be separated. 

Dr. Arnold said, " It is clear that in whatever it is our 
duty to act, those matters also it is our duty to study." The 
teacher's function as an instructor is determined by the rela- 
tions of knowledge to the mind, or it is rather to cause his 
pupil to use knowledge in such a way as to promote proper 
mental growth. As a former of minds, he has no duty to 
perform that is not included in this generalization. That 
tlie teacher may successfully prosecute his art, he must 
know— 

1. The activities of the mind, their nature and relations, 
and their respective values as determined by the facts of life, 
individual and social ; or, in other words, he must have an 
educational ideal. 

2. The varieties of knowledge— or, as Bacon called them, 
the " knowledges "—and their power to stimulate and form 
the mind, in respect both to quantity and quality ; or he 
must have worked out, partially at least, the problem of 
educational values. 

The person who has this knowledge conjoined with skill 
in bringing knowledge, or the world, and the mind into vital 
relation, can successfully discharge the function of a teacher, 
and only such person can do so. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE FIELD OF HISTORY. 

References. — Diesterweg. Spencer, Carlyle, and Macaulay : same 
references as in previous chapter ; Green : A Short History of the 
English People (author's preface to the original edition, and Mrs. 
Green's preface to the revised edition) ; McMaster : A History of the 
People of the United States (Introduction). 

In the broadest sense, history is the story of man living 
in social relations in the world, as traced in various records 
and memorials. More narrowly, it is the story of man liv- 
ing in the higher social relations that constitute the civil 
state or civilization. Dr. Arnold calls history u the biogra- 
phy of a political society or commonwealth," meaning by 
these terms a state. 

The writer who set the earliest copy of historical com- 
position that has come down to us, thus states his purpose : 
"This is a publication of the researches of Herodotus of 
Halicarnassus, in order that the actions of men may not be 
effaced by time, nor the great and wondrous deeds dis- 
played both by Greeks and Barbarians deprived of renown ; 
and among the rest, for which cause they waged war upon 
each other." Here we have the characteristic feature of 
our subject. History deals with the actions of men, in con- 
tradistinction to natural history that deals with the facts of 
vegetable and animal life. In this all students are agreed. 

History is divisible into two grand departments — general 
and special history. The first deals with man in his broad- 
est relations. Practically the so-called general or universal 
histories are all more or less limited, being confined to the 



THE FIELD OF HISTORY. 19 

main stream of human movement, to the exclusion of side 
currents and back waters ; but their name implies that they 
are histories of the world. Special history, on the other 
hand, deals with man in his narrower or particular rela- 
tions. Works falling under this division are occupied with 
special countries, states, cities, or periods, as Egypt and 
Greece, Athens and Prussia, Rome and Venice, the Crusades, 
the Thirty Years' War, and the eighteenth century. An- 
cient, mediaeval, and modern history are but chronological 
divisions of general history. On this second point also there 
is a common agreement. 

Either one of the divisions now described may be con- 
sidered under two aspects. The student or writer may take 
a broad view of his subject, covering many different groups 
of facts ; or he may take a narrow view, confining his atten- 
tion to some particular group of facts. Proceeding in the 
first way, he produces either a general history, or a work 
dealing with some division of it, as the history of Europe, 
France, or America. Proceeding in the second way, he pro- 
duces an ecclesiastical history, a constitutional history, a 
military history, etc. Nor is there any difference of opinion 
touching this point. 

As to the subject-matter of the special branches of his- 
tory, there can be no dispute. The ecclesiastical historian is 
concerned with religion or the Church, the constitutional 
historian with political institutions, the industrial historian 
with the employments and occupations of men. But as to 
history in the broader sense — that is, universal history or 
some selected portion of it — there is a wide difference of 
opinion and practice. All historians agree that this consists 
of the actions of men, but all do not agree upon the ques- 
tion, What actions ? This question is so important as to de- 
mand brief consideration. 

Living in an age when books were few, and in a country 
where libraries did not exist, Herodotus carried on his re- 
searches mainly by means of travel and personal inquiry, 
and there is almost as much reason for calling him the 



20 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

father of travellers as the father of historians. He visited 
in person the principal countries and cities of which he 
wrote. Giving wide scope to the phrase "the actions of 
men," he included in his immortal book a varied selection of 
information — scientific theories, geographical descriptions, 
religious rites, national and tribal manners and customs, 
personal anecdotes, conversations, speeches, and dialogues, 
as well as facts relating to governments, dynasties, kings, 
wars, and conquests. This was a conception of history very 
natural at a time when the several branches of literature 
were but faintly differentiated, and it was obviously too 
broad to be maintained permanently. Still, it was a truer 
conception than one that has sometimes obtained currency 
in later times. 

The subsequent development of historical composition 
need not be marked out. It suffices to say that in time the 
tendency to confine history closely to the transactions of 
government and the doings of important personages be- 
came strong. The court, the camp, and the halls of state 
now absorb the student's principal attention. A great 
writer of our own times (Dr. E. A. Freeman) keyed his 
historical writings to the motto, "History is past poli- 
tics, politics present history." This is the governmental 
theory. Mr. Herbert Spencer, in criticising history as 
formerly taught in the schools of England, and as com- 
monly written, says it consists of the biographies of mon- 
archs, court intrigues, plots, usurpations, and the like ; 
and he demands to be told what it is out of the accu- 
mulated details making up the narrative, that helps one 
in deciding on his conduct as a citizen. Lord Macaulay 
more tersely describes this view of history. " Most peo- 
ple," he says, "seem to imagine that a detail of public 
occurrences — the operations of sieges, the changes of ad- 
ministration, the treaties, the conspiracies, the rebellions — 
is a complete history. Historians have, almost without 
exception, confined themselves to the public transactions 
of states. " 



THE FIELD OF HISTORY. 21 

This narrowing of the field was due to a variety of causes. 
The term " government " sums up a great number of the im- 
portant actions of men. I Government exemplifies historical 
continuity better, perhaps, than any other single fact, thus 
furnishing the best clew through the tangled labyrinth of 
human affairs, and in its successions and divisions furnishes 
a good chronological scheme for the organization of histor- 
ical material. The Greeks counted time by Olympiads, but 
the Egyptians referred events to reigns and dynasties, the 
Koreans to consular terms, and modern peoples have often 
followed the Roman and Egyptian examples. Battles and 
wars are important in themselves, and are also among the 
most striking and exciting of historical events. Emperors, 
kings, generals, and other great people rather than the 
multitude, arrest the attention of the common observer ; and 
where monarchical ideas prevail, or hero worship abounds, 
it is not surprising that historians should assign to them an 
exaggerated importance. Finally, the ever-widening field of 
human actions practically compels a limitation of the his- 
torian's view. 

The conception of history that is now most current in 
English-speaking countries assigns large room to the popular 
element. It originated in democratic ideas, and it gives the 
first place to the people or the nation. Writing to one of 
his correspondents about his History previous to its pub- 
lication, Lord Macaulay said he should not be satisfied un- 
less he produced something which should for a few days 
supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young 
ladies. And this he actually did. His biographer tells us 
that " at Dukinfield, near Manchester, a gentleman who 
thought that there would be a certain selfishness in keeping 
so great a pleasure to himself, invited his poorer neighbors 
to attend every evening after their work was finished, and 
read the History aloud to them from beginning to end. At 
the close of the last meeting one of the audience rose, and 
moved, in north-country fashion, a vote of thanks to Mr- 
Macaulay for having written a history which workingmen 



22 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

can understand." * It is easy to point out serious defects in 
The History of England from the Accession of James II., 
but no one can deny that it is both eminently instructive 
and eminently readable. It is equally easy to tell how its 
author produces his magical effects. 

First, he is a master story-teller. For the art of narra- 
tion he was admirably fitted both by nature and by train- 
ing. But, secondly — and this is more to the present purpose 
— Macaulay selects his facts with the utmost care according 
to a certain theory. He tells us that the two rulers of this 
province of literature are reason and imagination ; that it is 
a combination of the novel and the essay, a compound of 
poetry and philosophy ; and gives us to understand that 
the perfect historian, at least of England, would be a com- 
pound of Mr. Hallam and Sir Walter Scott. He exclaims 
against that false dignity or majesty of history — those ab- 
surd conventional decencies — that rob the historian of many 
of his most valuable materials. He thinks that the historian's 
business is to depict the national life. He sees the place that 
government holds in the world, but also the place that the 
people hold. The perfect historian "shows us the court, 
the camp, and the senate. But he shows us also the nation. 
He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no 
familiar saying, as too insignificant for his notice, which is 
not too insignificant to illustrate the operation of laws, of 
religion, and of education, and to mark the progress of the 
human mind. \ Men will not merely be described, but will 
be made intimately known to us. The changes of manners 
will be indicated, not merely by a few general phrases, or a 
few extracts from statistical documents, but by appropriate 
images presented in every line." 

A later English writer — one of whom it was said that he 
had rediscovered the lost art of historical composition ; one 
whose best known work reached in a few years its one hun- 
dredth edition — carried Macaulay 's central thought still fur- 

* Trevelyan : Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, N. Y., ii, 207. 



THE FIELD OF HISTORY. 23 

ther. Defining the aim of his Short History of the English 
People, Mr. J. R. Green wrote in his preface : 

The aim of the following work is denned by its title : it is a 
history, not of English kings or English conquests, but of the Eng- 
lish People. At the risk of sacrificing much that was interesting 
and attractive in itself, and which the constant usage of our his- 
torians has made familiar to English readers, I have preferred to 
pass lightly and briefly over the details of foreign wars and diploma- 
cies, the personal adventures of kings and nobles, the pomp of 
courts, or the intrigues of favorites, and to dwell at length on the 
incidents of that constitutional, intellectual, and social advance in 
which we read the history of the nation itself. It is with this pur- 
pose that I have devoted more space to Chaucer than to Cressy, to 
Caxton than to the petty strife of Yorkist and Lancastrian, to the 
Poor Law of Elizabeth than to her victory at Cadiz, to the Metho- 
dist revival than to the escape of the Young Pretender. 

It has been said of Mr. Green : 

However Gibbon might err in massing together his social facts 
in chapters apart, however inadequate Hume's attempts at social 
history might be, however Macaulay might look at social facts 
merely as bits of external ornament, they all, he maintained, pro- 
fessed the faith he held. He used to protest that even those Eng- 
lish historians who desired to be merely " external and pragmatic," 
could not altogether reach their aim as though they had been " High 
Dutchmen." The free course of national life in England was too 
strong to allow them to become ever wholly lost in state papers .* 

Mr. J. B. McMaster is writing his popular work, A His- 
tory of the People of the United States, on similar lines. 
His opening paragraph defines his plan. 

The subject of my narrative is the history of the people of the 
United States of America from the close of the war for independ- 
ence down to the opening of the war between the States. In the 
course of this narrative much, indeed, must be written of wars, con- 
spiracies, and rebellions ; of Presidents, of Congresses, of embassies, 



* Mrs. Green's Preface to the Ee vised Edition. 
4 



24 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOEY. 

of treaties, of the ambition of political leaders in the senate house, 
and of the rise of great parties in the nation. Yet the history of 
the people shall be the chief theme. At every stage of the splendid 
progress which separates the America of Washington and Adams 
from the America in which we live, it shall be my purpose to de- 
scribe the dress, the occupations, the amusements, the literary can- 
ons of the times ; to note the changes of manners and morals ; to 
trace the growth of that humane spirit which abolished punishment 
for debt, which reformed the discipline of prisons and of jails, and 
which has, in our own time, destroyed slavery and lessened the mis- 
eries of dumb brutes. 

Carlyle clearly discerned the imperfection of the govern- 
mental theory, and saw that the time had come for a change 
on the part of the historian. 

From of old it was too often to be reproachfully observed of 
him that he dwelt with disproportionate fondness in senate houses, 
in battlefields, nay, even in kings' antechambers; forgetting that 
far away from such scenes the mighty tide of thought and action 
was still rolling on its wondrous course, in gloom and brightness ; 
and in its thousand remote valleys, a whole world of existence with 
or without an earthly sun of happiness to warm it, with or without 
a heavenly sun of holiness to purify and sanctify it, was blossoming 
and fading, whether the ' famous victory ' were won or lost. The 
time seems coming when much of this must be amended ; and he 
who sees no world but that of courts and camps, and writes only 
how soldiers were drilled and shot, and how this ministerial con- 
jurer outconjured that other, and then guided or at least held 
something which he called the rudder of government, but which 
was rather the spigot of taxation, wherewith, in place of steering, he 
could tap, the more cunningly the nearer the lees — will pass for 
a more or less instructive gazetteer, but will no longer be called a 
historian. 

No doubt the democratic theory of history may be over- 
done ; but those who are in touch with the modern spirit 
are little likely to question that it is a much truer theory 
than the one that limits the field to a mere detail of public 
transactions. Still, it must be said that the history of 



THE FIELD OF HISTORY. 25 

different countries is by no means composed of the same ele- 
ments. In some the master factors are the king and the gov- 
ernment, in others the people themselves. Sometimes the 
sphere of the state is so enlarged that nearly all the most 
important actions of men are public occurrences ; again, the 
people are most prominent in initiating and carrying on 
many of the most important interests of society. Of course, 
such differences must appear in history. Contrast the civ- 
ilizations of Egypt and Assyria with those of Greece and 
Rome. In the Eastern nations everything is uniform and 
monotonous ; men move before us on the historic page a 
dumb and lifeless herd, without individual or personal char- 
acter. Despots of unlimited power rule over men in brute 
masses, but there is in our sense no national life and no peo- 
ple. There are conquerors and lawgivers, but no statesmen 
or politics as we understand statesmanship and politics. In 
Europe aU this is very different. The moment we cross the 
Bosporus or the Mediterranean the scene changes : there 
are a people, a public life, statesmen, politicians, and orators ; 
government is carried on by modern methods — that is, by ar- 
gument and persuasion ; we see somebody besides the king. 
In Athens, Socrates teaches in the market place ; JEschy- 
lus and Sophocles write for the theatres that are thronged 
with people ; Pericles comes in the room of Pharaoh. Mod- 
ern history really began in Greece. Or consider the civiliza- 
tion of France and England. In France the government, 
in addition to conducting the civil and military administra- 
tion, patronizes art, science, and literature, and provides 
public works on a vast scale, while in England these latter 
interests have been largely left, though by no means wholly 
so, to the energy of voluntary individual and co-operative 
enterprise. A French writer could not find as large a theme 
in a History of the French People as Mr. Green found in 
England or as Mr. McMaster finds in America. The con- 
clusion is, that histories of different countries, if well writ- 
ten, will combine the governmental and the popular ele- 
ment in quite different proportions. For example, the 



26 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

French colonies of America from the first were children of 
power and patronage, and so grew up dependent and almost 
helpless ; the English colonies, on the other hand, planted 
by voluntary efforts and left very largely to themselves, 
grew up vigorous and independent. The place that is occu- 
pied by the government in the one instance is occupied by 
the people in the other. 

Still another difficulty should be noted. It is not practi- 
cable to make the history that is taught in common schools 
very broad or discursive. There must be a pretty strict 
limitation of matter. This point will be more fully con- 
sidered when we come to deal with the choice of facts ; but 
it is pertinent to observe here that, after the preliminary 
stage is passed, the story of the government, or the record of 
public transactions, must constitute the backbone of what 
is taught, at least until the differentiated work of the college 
is reached. Still, the social aspects of history should by no 
means be overlooked in the common school. 



CHAPTER III. 

SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 

References. — Adams : A Manual of Historical Literature (the 
bibliographies) ; H. B. Adams and others : Johns Hopkins Universi- 
ty Studies, Eighth Series, XI., XII. (Seminary Notes on Recent His- 
torical Literature) ; White : Papers of the Historical Association, I., 
No. II. (On Studies in General History and the History of Civiliza- 
tion) ; Hart : The Academy, II. (A List of General Readings in the 
History of the United States) ; Hall : Methods of Teaching History 
(the bibliographies) ; Gordy and Twitchell : A Pathfinder of Ameri- 
can History (numerous lists of well-selected books) ; Davidson : 
Reference History of the United States ; Barnes : Studies in Gen- 
eral History, Studies in Greek and Roman History, Studies in 
American History, also Teachers' Manuals and Aids ; Heilprin : 
Historical Reference-Book. 

It is a matter of regret that the teachers who are teach- 
ing history in the schools of the country command such 
slender resources. Those who are thus employed in the dis- 
trict schools and in the elementary grades of the towns and 
cities, it is to be feared, have commonly derived their knowl- 
edge wholly or mainly from the text-books that they use, 
and perhaps one or two similar books besides. Nor is the 
equipment of high-school teachers by any means all that we 
could desire. No doubt there are many capable teachers in 
both kinds of schools. The general subject of the teacher's 
qualifications will be dealt with in another place ; but it is 
desirable to describe here the principal sources of knowl- 
edge with which the ideal teacher must be more or less 
familiar, and also to offer such practical remarks as can be 
made with most effect. 



28 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

I. To begin at the teacher's desk, text-hooks of history 
may first be mentioned. Such books are commonly only 
compilations from larger works, but they demand special 
attention because they are prepared with special reference to 
the needs of the school and of the pupils. That the teacher 
should thoroughly know the book in daily use does not need 
to be argued, but it does need to be emphasized. More than 
this, the teacher should also know quite familiarly a few 
other text-books dealing with the same subject, two or three 
at least. The advantages of such familiarity are, that a 
wider view of the subject may be obtained, and that differ- 
ent ways of putting things may be studied ; or, if the topical 
method is pursued, the teacher assigning topics and sending 
the pupils to the library, the teacher should be acquainted 
with the authorities that the pupils resort to for informa- 
tion. 

No text-books now used in schools, when compared with 
those in use a generation ago, show greater improvement 
than books in history. Such books as Gardiner's, Myers's, 
Montgomery's, and Johnston's were not then in existence. 
It may also be said, for the further encouragement of 
teachers, that still greater improvement may be ex- 
pected. 

II. The next class of books to be mentioned consists of 
the larger historical works that cover the same ground as 
the text-books. Text-books are nothing but outlines, and can 
be nothing else — skeletons, with a little flesh and blood and 
life ; and the teacher will never understand the bearings of 
a subject so that he can fully explain it, and much less pos- 
sess a sufficient fund for illustration and expansion, if he is 
wholly dependent upon them. To consult several such 
books will not suffice, although that is a great advantage. 
They are always more or less dry and confined, while the 
teacher should know something of the freedom which the 
author shows who is not limited to a fixed number of 
pages. For a teacher of American history who holds a 
practically permanent position, and so has opportunity for 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 29 

self -improvement, to be ignorant of Bancroft, Hildreth, Mc- 
Master, and Schouler should be counted a disgrace. More 
than this, he should have read, volume by volume, Fiske's 
Discovery of America, The American Revolution, and The 
Critical Period of American History, and Parkman's ad- 
mirable series, France and England in North America. He 
should be cognizant of some of the more valuable works 
devoted to particular sections of the country, as Palfrey's 
History of New England, and to particular periods, as 
Adams's History of the United States. 

Of the numerous histories of the Civil War no one stands 
out with marked prominence. For the political side, per- 
haps Greeley's American Conflict is as good as any; while 
for the military side, the series of volumes called The Cam- 
paigns of the Civil War may be recommended. 

Here it may be observed that no teacher should attempt 
to deal comprehensively with tbe Civil War, or indeed with 
any series of military operations that are to be treated some- 
what in detail, without first forming a conspectus of the 
whole. This requires much patient study and much exer- 
cise of the imagination. As an aid, Colonel T. A. Dodge's 
Bird's-Eye View of Our Civil War can be highly recom- 
mended. If the title does not sufficiently explain the char- 
acter of this admirable work, these sentences may be quoted 
from the introduction: "The principal military events are 
herein grouped in such sequence that a careful reading, with 
maps before you, will yield you a fair knowledge of what 
modern war is, and what our Civil War was. . . . My aim has 
been to give the layman a clear idea of the war as a military 
whole, paying no heed to individual heroism, nor dwelling 
upon the war as a spectacle." While a book of this descrip- 
tion is not properly a history of the war, it can not fail to be 
of great service to a student or teacher who, having looked 
at the war as a spectacle, filled his mind with facts, and ob- 
served sufficient instances of individual heroism, is thereby 
fitted to form a conspectus. Manifestly, such a book is not 
a proper one to put into the hands of a student first taking 



30 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

up the subject, unless, indeed, he is a person having much 
knowledge of history and mental discipline. 

III. History teaching in elementary schools, and to a 
considerable extent in high schools, should bear heavily on 
biography. Facts about a man arouse more interest and 
enthusiasm in pupils, and particularly in young pupils, than 
facts about a community or state ; while for many purposes 
historical characters are the very best centers about which to 
group facts. A good life of Washington is almost a com- 
plete history of the Revolution ; a good life of Lincoln, of the 
Civil War. Besides, such a life, and especially one of Lincoln, 
since he was the more original character, contains elements 
of interest that an ordinary history does not contain. But 
the value of history in men has, perhaps, been sufficiently 
emphasized on previous pages. Still, it is importaut to ob- 
serve that the teacher's biographical reading should not be 
confined to men in public life, statesmen, and soldiers; busi- 
ness men, scholars, moral and religious reformers, men of 
letters, men of science, discoverers, and inventors, not only 
stand for invaluable elements of the national life, but they 
also furnish as instructive and healthful reading as boys and 
girls can have. Many men who have exercised far-reaching 
influence were never in public life at all — Fulton, Whitney, 
Morse, Garrison, Emerson, Agassiz, Ericsson, and many more. 
Mention may be made of diaries, autobiographies, and mem- 
oirs, which have an interest and charm in themselves. Per- 
haps no books relating to the Civil War are more valuable 
than the personal memoirs of Grant, Sherman, and Sheri- 
dan. 

Many series* of English and American books may be 

* We are living in an age of series. History, art, science, literature, and 
religion are set before the public in an endless array of monograph-groups. 
Whatever the disadvantages of the fashion, it has a distinct aesthetic signifi- 
cance. The dainty series is to the ponderous fourteen- volume history as a 
Trench cook's masterpiece to a Virginia barbecue. There may be more 
nourishment in the latter, but an appreciation of the former denotes the 
more refined palate. — The Political Science Quarterly, vol. v,p. 54. 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 31 

mentioned that illustrate these observations. English Men 
of Action, English Men of Letters, Twelve English States- 
men, Rulers of India, The Queen's Prime Ministers. Ameri- 
can Statesmen, American Men of Letters, American Religious 
Leaders, Great American Commanders, etc. The Questions 
of the Day Series also contain some good studies that will 
be useful to the teacher of history. 

Both the volumes making up these series and the series 
themselves are of quite unequal merit. Many of them have 
a very high literary value. As contributions to American 
history, nearly all the Statesmen volumes may be strongly 
recommended. This is not because that, either singly or 
collectively, they have added materially to historical knowl- 
edge, but because they bring together important facts and 
group them around leading actors, thus adding to history 
the peculiar interest of biography. As most of the series 
mentioned are incomplete, the number of volumes is not 
given. Names of publishers and prices are readily obtain- 
able. 

IV. Books of a different class should have due mention. 
Historical scholarship tends strongly, as does scholarship in 
other branches of learning, to the production of works sum- 
ming up the salient features of the subject in single volumes 
of convenient size, many of which are adapted both to 
scholars and to general readers. Green's Short History of 
the English People, save that it is rather large, is an excel- 
lent example of this kind of book. Bryce's Holy Roman 
Empire, while in no sense a popular book like Green's His- 
tory, may also be mentioned. Seeley's Expansion of Eng- 
land handles an important subject in an engaging way. 
Lodge's Short History of the English Colonies belongs to 
the same class of works. Higginson's and Johnston's single 
volumes are the best ones treating of the United States. It 
may be observed that a good two-volume history of our 
country is a desideratum. 

V. Of a somewhat different character are the various se- 
ries of volumes, known both by general and special titles, that 



32 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

deal with, the striking epochs or phases of connected histor- 
ical subjects. Such books often present in a clear manner 
the subjects with which they deal ; they may be read to ad- 
vantage as single works, or in connection with the other 
volumes of the series as sections or chapters of a continu- 
ous work. Many such series have been produced, or are in 
course of production, in England. Mention may be made 
of the following : Epochs of English History, Epochs of 
Modern History, Epochs of Ancient History, Epochs of 
Church History. The Epochs of American History and The 
American History Series are well-known examples of simi- 
lar American books. 

VI. A knowledge of constitutional and municipal law, 
religion, science, art, literature, moral reform, and many 
other subjects are necessary to the full illumination of his- 
tory. It is very true that when general history is prop- 
erly written, it includes much of this knowledge. But spe- 
cial works have the advantage of bringing attention to a 
special class of facts, and of permitting a more scientific 
treatment than is attainable in works of a general character. 
Such books as Cairnes's The Slave Power, Cooley's Princi- 
ples of Constitutional Law, Curtis's History of the Constitu- 
tion, De Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Bryce's Amer- 
ican Commonwealth, Taussig's Tariff History of the United 
States, Sumner's Financial History of the United States, and 
Johnston's American Politics, may be given as examples. 
Valuable articles on such subjects are often found in the 
magazines and quarterlies. Mention may also be made of 
the cyclopaedias, and particularly of Lalor's Cyclopaedia of 
Political Science, Political Economy, and United States His- 
tory. 

VII. Treatises, dissertations, monographs, and essays de- 
voted to special .aspects or elements of history. Not only is 
history a very important factor in various studies that are 
not grouped under the head of historical, as political philoso- 
phy, constitutional law, and social science, but these sciences 
throw important light upon history. In his Economical 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 33 

Interpretation of History, Professor Rogers illustrates this 
at much length, showing, for instance, how commerce, 
manufactures, and agricultural productions have exercised 
a profound influence upon the history of domestic politics, 
diplomacy, and war. Mr. W. B. Weeden has written his 
Economical and Social History of New England, 1620-1789, 
for a similar purpose. He tells us that " Economy, the daily 
order of living and fellowship, are homely elements which 
are coming to be recognized as potent factors in the large 
drama of history." 

VIII. Books devoted to minor political communities 
should not be omitted. Many State histories are worthless, 
or nearly so ; others are excellent ; and while local histories 
as a class contain a vast amount of rubbish, there are few of 
them that have not some good material. State and local 
histories commonly abound in anecdote, story r ,and incident; 
to which it may be added that local history has its own 
peculiar educational value. Of State histories, The Com- 
monwealth Series deserves particular mention. These vol- 
umes do not propose to give in detail the formal annals of 
each member of the Union, but " to sketch rapidly and 
forcibly the lives of those States which have had marked in- 
fluence upon the structure of the nation, or have embodied in 
their formation and growth principles of American polity." 
While the different States of the Union have much in com- 
mon, many of them present striking differences, and so illus- 
trate different lessons. 

Something more may fairly be said about local history. 
u The old-fashioned town histories are mines of crude his- 
toric ore," says Mr. Weeden, "while the actual records of 
the early time now being reproduced are invaluable." But, 
more than this, the student of local history has an advantage 
similar to that enjoyed by the botanist or biologist who puts 
a small section of the organism that he wishes to study under 
his microscope. There is a great advantage attending look- 
ing at history in petto. Some years ago I read with deep 
interest the section of an ill-put- together town history, en- 



34 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

titled The American Eevolution. The town was Torring- 
ton, Conn. Here were quotations from the town records, 
muster rolls of. the militia companies, orders for drafts, requi- 
sitions for supplies, reports from the seat of war, lists of 
killed and wounded, etc., interspersed with some incident, 
anecdote, or personal characterization. Following the tax- 
gatherer on his rounds ; reading the frequent calls for sol- 
diers and orders for the militia to turn out ; observing the 
women at their heavy tasks, spinning wool and weaving 
flax, making blankets and tents for the army, and often 
gathering the crops or making the maple sugar ; scanning 
the hard bill of domestic fare, breakfast without tea and 
dinner without salt — I formed a more realistic view than 
before of the times that tried men's souls. And this suggests 
the reflection that division, brigade, and regimental histories 
supply interesting elements in the history of warfare that 
are not found in general history at all, or not in much 
abundance. 

IX. From even a summary view of historical apparatus 
graphical representations can not be omitted. Such appli- 
ances are even more necessary in studying history than in 
studying the existing state of things in the world. How 
could historical geography be taught without historical 
maps ? As Dr. Freeman says : " When a certain name as 
applied to a country conveys the idea of a certain state of 
things in that country, to apply that name to it at a time 
when that state of things did not exist, at once conveys a 
false impression ; it suggests that the state of things which 
the name implies existed at a time when it did not exist." 
To carry back into historic times the present meaning of 
geographical names is what the same writer calls "bond- 
age to the modern map." 

In nothing does the historical student of to-day enjoy a 
greater advantage over the student of former days, and even 
of a few years ago, than in respect to historical geography, 
and particularly in respect to historical maps. Bondage to 
the modern map is now a voluntary and not a compulsory 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 35 

servitude. Almost every new book dealing with an histor- 
ical subject in a broad way contains one or more maps; 
while many books, and especially those dealing with mili- 
tary operations, have a "pocket" of maps. Good wall maps 
for the library and the classroom are comparatively inex- 
pensive. Historical atlases are produced in such numbers, 
and are of such excellence and cheapness, that the student 
is actually embarrassed to choose among them. School his- 
tories of the United States well reflect the progress that has 
been made in this branch of scholarship: a book without a 
number of good maps is condemned by all competent 
judges. 

X. All this time we have been dealing with history at 
second hand; we have been occupied with books in which 
the facts are not only selected by the author, but worked up 
by him ready for use. This is not sufficient : we must go 
back of the historian's printed page to inspect the materials 
that he has used in his preparation. Such materials may be 
divided into four classes. 

1. Literary documents, such as laws, decisions of the 
courts, official proclamations, orders, reports and mes- 
sages, charters, private letters, diaries, legislative records, 
and the like. General literature, both book and peri- 
odical, should also be mentioned, for it not only con- 
tains a multitude of facts, but also reflects, as official 
documents could not do, the manners, temper, and spirit 
of the times. 

2. Monuments, inscriptions, ruins, and in fact everything 
coming under the head of archaeology and antiquities. Even 
the tyro knows that investigations of these subjects have in 
recent years added greatly to our knowledge of the countries 
of the Old World, as Assyria and Egypt, and that they have 
created nearly all the knowledge that we have of the history 
and condition of our own continent previous to the coming 
of the white man. 

3. Historical geography, study of the origin, meaning, 
distribution, and changes of geographical names. This im- 



36 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

portant field of knowledge will be treated more fully in 
another place. 

4. Natural science, more especially ethnology, physical 
geography, and geology. These studies join hand with 
archaeology and antiquities. For instance, the question of 
the length of time that particular races have occupied differ- 
ent countries ; the question of the order in which different 
races occupying the same country have appeared, as well as 
the question of the antiquity of man, must be determined, 
for the most part, by investigating the human relics that we 
find in recent geological deposits.* 

The phrase " original materials " may be understood in 
two ways. In strictest sense, the original student discovers 
his own materials. He goes to veritable records and monu- 
ments, and searches for human memorials in caves and in 
the dust of the earth. But in a secondary sense he is an 
original student who makes good use of the materials that 
others have discovered and have either published or de- 
scribed. 

The whole mass of printed documentary matter relating 
to the history of the United States is enormous. Since 1789 
everything of consequence pertaining to the National Gov- 
ernment has been published, either at the time of the trans- 
action or soon afterward ; the States also publish their cur- 
rent public history ; while Congress, the States, learned 

* " In most of the countries of Western Europe," says Hugh Miller, 
" Scotland among the rest, geological history may be regarded as ending 
where human history begins. The most ancient portions of the one piece 
on to the most modern portions of the other. But their line of junction is, 
if I may so express myself, not an abrupt, but a shaded line ; so that, on 
the one hand, the human period passes so entirely into the geological that 
we found our conclusions respecting the first human inhabitants rather on 
what they deemed geologic than on the ordinary historic data ; and, on the 
other hand, some of the latter and lesser geologic changes have taken place 
in periods comparatively so recent, that in even our own country we are 
able to catch a glimpse of them in the first dawn of history proper— that 
written history in which man records the deeds of his fellows."— Popular 
Geology, Lecture I. 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 37 

societies, and enterprising publishers have given us pretty 
much everything that throws light upon our earlier history. 
In fact, only historical specialists have, or can have, much 
idea of the vast treasures of such lore that have accumulated 
in the great libraries of the country. 

Another class of original materials will be found more 
generally interesting than official documents — the writings 
of prominent actors in history and of competent observers. 
It is not, indeed, supposed that the teachers of history in our 
public schools will read through the numerous and bulky 
volumes containing the writings of Washington, Franklin, 
Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson, and others of our distinguished 
statesmen. All that is contended for is a sufficient acquaint- 
ance with such authorities to show what they are, to reveal 
their spirit, and to give some idea of the nature of histori- 
cal materials. 

While our country is inferior to many others in histor- 
ical monuments, it is not wholly barren of them. The ar- 
chseologist finds interesting subjects of study. A majority 
of teachers in the Mississippi Valley can form an acquaint- 
ance with the works of the Mound-Builders ; at least, they 
can read some of the books in which these works are de- 
scribed, as Short's North Americans of Antiquity, and Fos- 
ter's Prehistoric Races in the United States of America. 
Again, the geographical names of the country— Indian, 
Spanish, French, English — are found in every school atlas, 
and no great scholarship is required to read many of their 
lessons. From the fourth subdivision of the field the com- 
mon student is shut out, save as he reads books written 
to elucidate it. Professor Wright's The Ice Age in North 
America and its Bearings upon the Antiquity of Man covers 
this ground ; and so, in a less thorough way, does his Man 
and the Glacial Period. 

Probably I should state distinctly that it has not been 
my aim to make out a list of books that will fully equip the 
teacher, but rather to survey the broad field of historical 
knowledge, and incidentally to give titles of books that well 



38 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

illustrate the character of the work described. Naturally 
the question arises, How much of this field can the teacher 
be expected to cultivate ? 

In respect to the rank and file, it must be frankly ad- 
mitted that we can not hope to see them become very accom- 
plished historical scholars. The present state of the schools 
and the conditions surrounding them are such as to forbid 
large expectations. At the same time a good deal can be 
done, and should be done, even here to raise the standard of 
attainment. 

Secondly, I have all the time been careful, in preparing 
this outline, to keep well within the limits that an enterpris- 
ing teacher of good ability and good habits of study, who is 
also favorably situated, may fairly hope to reach. Such 
teacher, although he may be discouraged at the outset, will 
in the end be surprised to find how quickly he has skirted 
the field, and will then be more anxious than ever to en- 
large his plan. 

No doubt the principal criticism of my scheme will be 
that it includes original study. The bare mention that the 
high-school teacher, and still more the teacher in the ele- 
mentary schools, should be not merely a reader of books of 
history but also an investigator of the material out of which 
such books are made, will strike many minds, and perhaps 
most minds, as a piece of extravagance. Hence it is neces- 
sary to show that some work of the kind is perfectly feasi- 
ble. But first we should remark upon its peculiar value. 

The student of science is not permitted to content him- 
self with facts of physics, chemistry, botany, or geology that 
are obtained from books. He is sent to the laboratory, to 
the field or forest, to the rocks, for the observation of real 
facts, and, as far as possible, for experiment. The student 
of psychology and ethics is referred to his own conscious- 
ness, and the student of civil government to the legislature 
and the town meeting. Why should not similar work be 
required of students who are preparing to teach the impor- 
tant subject of history ? As matters now stand, there is no 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 39 

other study in the schools that rests so thoroughly upon a 
basis of authority. To an extent, no doubt, this inheres in 
the nature of the subject, but it is a criticism that can be in 
some part overcome. 

The only work in history that is analogous to the origi- 
nal work in science — that is, in schools — is found in the 
historical seminaries of the colleges and universities. The 
method is the so-called "laboratory method." Some his- 
torical works, and in fact many that deal with controverted 
subjects, do indeed contain more or less argument and criti- 
cism, with the citation of authorities, and so are a sort of his- 
torical seminary in themselves. Of such works Winsor's 
Narrative and Critical History of America is a conspicuous 
example. It is to be feared, however, that the common read- 
er too often skips these portions of the book. Critical dis- 
cussions have no place in the early stages of instruction, but 
afterward they are invaluable. As to the historical semi- 
nary proper, its advantages are quite certain to continue 
limited to a few students. Seminary work makes a large 
demand upon the teacher as well as upon the pupil. It is 
not a method adapted to the wants of college freshmen; 
such original materials as are given to students of this grade 
of ability should be made subsidiary to a text-book or to the 
lectures of the instructor. 

But while the common teacher of history in the schools 
of the country is shut out from the seminary room, he is not 
shut out from original information. There is not one of the 
four divisions of the field that he may not cultivate with 
good results. The fact is, he is now doing some work of 
the kind. For example, he studies the Declaration of In- 
dependence, the Constitution of the United States, Wash- 
ington's Farewell Address, and Lincoln's Emancipation 
Proclamations. Why should he not largely widen this 
field ? All the materials that he needs are accessible. One 
of the promising signs of the times is the efforts that are 
made to bring historical documents to the student and the 
teacher. Such books as Poore's Charters and Constitu- 
5 



40 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

tions, Preston's Documents Illustrative of American His- 
tory, Neill's Virginia Company of London and Virginia 
Carolorum, and Brown's Genesis of the United States — an 
extensive compilation of documents relating to the James- 
town settlement — illustrate this tendency. Durand's Docu- 
ments on the American Revolution is another good book. 
More expensive, and beyond the common student, is Ste- 
vens's Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives relat- 
ing to America. There are also valuable series of documents 
adapted to use in the schoolroom that are within reach of 
the poorest. The first of these series, entitled The Old South 
Leaflets, edited by Mr. E. D. Mead, has already reached more 
than thirty numbers. A later series, American History 
Leaflets, Colonial and Constitutional, edited by Professors 
Hart and Channing, may also be commended. Mr. P. L. 
Ford's Writings of Christopher Columbus, which appeared 
last year, was also a timely publication. 

Mr. Henderson, after declaring, in the preface to his Se- 
lect Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, that the bit- 
terness of the struggles between the Papacy and the Empire 
can never be comprehended by one who has not seen the 
letters of Gregory VII, of Frederick Barbarossa, and of Boni- 
face VIII, writes this paragraph : 

And if, through reading original documents, one gains a clearer 
insight into the truth itself, how much more critical, and how much 
more appreciative, does one become toward modern writers. Let 
one of my readers compare a chapter of Milman's Latin Christianity 
with documents here given in the book on Church and State. Noth- 
ing can be more instructive than such an exercise. One can exam- 
ine at leisure the materials with which the historian worked — his 
methods will be clear from knowing with what he had to deal ; the 
documents themselves will be illumined by his intelligence and 
learning. A guide-book is only of real worth to those who are to 
some extent familiar with the scenes described. 

The teacher who has never made an excursion into the 
field of original research can but poorly appreciate the 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION. 41 

sense of reality and the interest that such studies impart to 
historical knowledge. No real student would be content to 
take Bancroft's account of the Declaration of Independence, 
or of the Constitution of the United States. Why should he 
be content with Prescott's, Fiske's, or Irving's account of 
Columbus's letter to Santangel, so long as that letter is 
within his reach ? Washington's Journal of his visit to the 
Ohio in 1754 is better than the brilliant pages in which Mr. 
Parkman describes that visit ; and John and Abigail Adams's 
Familiar Letters give a much better view of certain phases 
of the Revolutionary struggle than can be obtained from 
the pages of any historian. 

No doubt it would be impossible for most teachers of his- 
tory to carry original studies very far. They should remem- 
ber, however, that such studies in history, even more than 
such studies in some other subjects, cast a light beyond 
their immediate borders. Nor is it to be expected that such 
teachers will make valuable additions to knowledge ; the 
expectation is rather that, doing what they can in this field, 
they will make their work more real, fresh, and permanent. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

THE CHOICE OF FACTS. 

References. — See references of Chapter II. Also Hall : Methods 
of Teaching History (particularly Introduction, and Methods of 
Teaching History by Dr. Adams) ; Freeman : Methods of Historical 
Study ; Klemm, Spencer, Bain, Compayre, Fitch, and Currie : refer- 
ences previously given ; Ransome : Elementary History of Eng- 
land; The Journal of Education (London), February, 1891 (pp. 
86, 87). * 

In teaching history the selection of materials is of un- 
usual importance and difficulty. Few studies present such 
a disparity between what can be taught and what might be 
taught. While the store of facts is practically infinite, one 
of the ordinary Outlines or Manuals of General History, 
and two or three similar books relating to particular coun- 
tries, supplemented by a little general reading, is a fair 
measure of what is accomplished under the traditionary 
method. With a better method, the amount of information 
imparted could be considerably increased, but still the dis- 
parity would not be very sensibly diminished. What to 
omit and what to include, when there is such an embarrass- 
ment of riches, is the crucial question that tests the compe- 
tency of author and teacher alike. 

The author is the first one to grapple with the question. 
* Summoning to his aid his knowledge of the subject, of the 
pupil's ability, of the teacher's fitness, and the amount of 
time that will probably be given to the study in the school 
or schools, he essays his difficult task. Where the author's 
perplexity ceases the teacher's begins. No good teacher 



THE CHOICE OF FACTS. 43 

attaches equal importance to all the facts that the author 
puts in his book, no matter how good the book may be; 
moreover, every good teacher goes beyond the book for facts 
that it does not contain. He is therefore compelled to do 
over again — on a smaller scale, perhaps — what the author 
has done before him. This, at least, is the course of things 
when instruction is given from a book. But it will simplify 
matters to drop the author out of sight, and to speak of the 
teacher as covering the whole ground. Their work is not, 
indeed, just the same, but it is sufficiently so to warrant us, 
at least for the time, in treating them as one person. By 
what criteria shall the teacher of history be guided in his 
choice of material ? 

Before attempting to answer, it should be observed that 
the only way to help the teacher at this point is to discuss 
the general subject with him. No sensible teacher of his- 
tory asks how many facts he is to teach. No two teachers — 
if good ones — would teach the same number of facts, or just 
the same facts, to the same pupil or class, and much less to 
different classes. No sensible teacher asks what kind of 
facts he shall teach, expecting to receive in answer a tabula- 
tion of his material. He knows that general rules, accom- 
panied by suitable illustrations, are the only useful answers 
to these questions. 

I. It is obvious that the first thing to be considered is 
the stage of instruction immediately in hand. Facts are 
the materials dealt with from first to last, but not the same 
kinds of facts. The facts chosen, whatever the stage of 
progress may be, must be selected with prime reference to 
the pupil's ability to take in and assimilate them. 

The facts presented in the primary stage must be particu- 
lar, simple, and concrete. The child of elementary school 
age is not troubled to understand the facts that occur in the 
sphere of the home, the school, and the neighborhood; nor 
will he be troubled to understand similar facts in history, 
even if they be of a somewhat elevated character, provided 
they are presented to him in an interesting way. The first 



44 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

lessons should be like the events that the child sees, hears, 
and reads of in the living world. Thus, he will readily pass 
from the known world of current life to the unknown world 
of historic life. Then, in addition to being simple and par- 
ticular, the facts should be such as in real life would attract 
the attention and hold the imagination of the learner. It is 
not necessary here to repeat the familiar commonplaces 
about the early development of the perceptive and represent- 
ative faculties of the mind. It is enough to say that children 
of quick fancy discover a great deal in the world that is pictur- 
esque and romantic ; that they do a vast amount of poetizing 
and dramatizing, and that the teacher of primary history 
who does not keep this fact in mind, and take advantage 
of it, will seriously miss his way. The pictorial and poetical 
elements of history should never cease to receive recog- 
nition, since they belong to the subject-matter, but in the 
elementary school they should be thrown into the fore- 
ground. Again, the close relations existing between the 
feelings and the intellectual powers should not be lost sight 
of. Deep feeling does indeed interfere with vigorous in- 
tellectual activity, particularly in the young; at the same 
time a lively feeling, as of sympathy or admiration, greatly 
stimulates interest and mental action. The things that take 
hold of these feelings not only develop the moral nature of 
the child but they also cling to the memory. The fact that 
a child of a certain age is a hero-worshiper is full of mean- 
ing on the mere didactic side as well as on the moral side. 

Personality is an element of great interest to adults and 
children alike. They are always pleased to hear about men. 
Of this we have a familiar proof in the depraved taste for 
mere gossip that is so common. Still further, the acts of 
men are more interesting to the common mind than their 
opinions and creeds. Hence it is that elementary instruc- 
tion in history must hold closely to objective transactions. 
The Pilgrim Fathers themselves — their heroic deeds in defy- 
ing sea and storm, hunger and cold, and a wily foe ; their 
peaked hats, dark cloaks, and heavy swords — will impress 



THE CHOICE OF FACTS. 45 

minds that do not respond to their civil and religious ideas or 
to the Pilgrim Compact. Then, the mind more readily seizes 
hold of individuals than of groups of individuals. Miles 
Standish cuts a deeper trace in the memory than the whole 
company that landed at Plymouth. Franklin will awaken 
interest when the Albany Congress fails to do so. Wash- 
ington on his campaigns will hold the youthful attention 
more closely than the Continental Congress or the Federal 
Convention discussing and adopting resolutions. These are 
not the only kinds of facts that history deals with ; the 
teacher must also teach ideas and documents — show what it 
is all about. But the more abstract facts must follow those 
that are of a concrete and objective nature. So important 
are persons in history, that they should be made centers for 
grouping facts, as will be explained hereafter. 

In well-ordered education, so far from there being a 
chasm between the elementary school and the secondary 
school, the first leads up to the second by progressive ap- 
proaches. Still, the two schools stand for stages of progress 
in the pupil's ability and in the teacher's methods. The 
faculties of perception, of memory, and imagination are not 
relatively so prominent in the second stage, while those of 
analysis, comparison, and reasoning are more prominent. 
Secondary instruction in history, therefore, marks an ad- 
vance, though not an abrupt advance, upon elementary in- 
struction. This is a capital fact, not only in view of the 
organization of material, but also in view of its selection. 
Facts of a more general and abstract nature can now be 
taught. Personal agents should be less prominent. The 
conceptions of society and of the nation should be brought 
forward. Large political transactions — the acts of legisla- 
tures, congresses, and conventions — can be grasped, though 
not as fully as at a later time. Some of the easier questions 
and problems of history may be discussed. The bearing of 
facts and the direction and force of historical movements 
can be pointed out. In truth, the relations of facts are but 
a broader view of the facts themselves. Here, too, will come 



46 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

in some of the lessons and teachings of history, political and 
moral. Instruction need not be made quite as pictorial and 
striking as before. Finally, care should be taken in the 
secondary school to form habits of accuracy and thorough- 
ness in the ascertainment of facts ; the difference between a 
fact and an opinion about it, or a conclusion drawn from it, 
must be duly appreciated ; in other words, secondary instruc- 
tion should lay the foundation for historical investigation. 

Of the third stage of education, a few words will here 
suffice. 

The advance from the secondary school to the college is 
not unlike the advance from the elementary school to the 
high school or the academy. Due regard will now be paid 
to the growth of the mind, both in the choice of materials 
and in the methods of presentation. Facts of a more general, 
complex, and abstract nature are in place ; also their broader 
relations. These facts and relations will suggest still larger 
and more difficult questions and problems. Society assumes 
much of the prominence that, in the beginning, was ac- 
corded to the individual man. Broader and deeper views of 
the state will now claim attention, and history will be cor- 
related with other subjects, as economics, constitutional 
law, and political philosophy. No pains should be spared 
to form right methods of study and to stimulate the spirit of 
investigation. The time has come when the student may 
comprehend the meaning of Professor Seeley. 

In history everything depends upon turning narrative into prob- 
lems. So long as you think of history as a mere chronological 
narrative, so long you are in the old literary groove which leads to 
no trustworthy knowledge, but only to that pompous conventional 
romancing of which all serious men are tired. Break the drowsy 
spell of narrative; ask yourself questions; set yourself problems; 
your mind will at once take up a new attitude ; you will become an 
investigator ; you will cease to be solemn and begin to be serious. 

He can now understand that anecdotes, incidents, personal 
facts, tales, and biographies are but the raw material of the 



THE CHOICE OF FACTS. 47 

history that is a guide to life and a high mental discipline, 
and by no means the whole of such material. He compre- 
hends the words of Guizot, who, while heartily assenting 
that history is limited to facts, denies that all facts are ma- 
terial and visible ; holds that " there are moral, hidden facts 
which are no less real than battles, wars, and the public 
acts of government. Besides these individual facts, each of 
which has its proper name," he says, " there are others of a 
general nature, without a name, of which it is impossible to 
say that they happened in such a year or on such a day, 
and which it is impossible to confine within any precise 
limits, but which are just as much facts as the battles and 
public acts of which we have spoken." 

That very portion, indeed, which we are accustomed to hear 
called the philosophy of history — which consists in showing the re- 
lation of events with each other, the chain which connects them, the 
causes and effects of events — this is history just as much as the 
description of battles and all the other exterior events which it 
recounts. Facts of this kind are undoubtedly more difficult to 
unravel ; the historian is more liable to deceive himself respecting 
them; it requires more skill to place them distinctly before the 
reader ; but this difficulty does not alter their nature ; they still con- 
tinue not a whit the less, for all this, to form an essential part of 
history. 

So much in relation to the rule that requires facts to be 
graduated according to the age and mental development of 
the pupil. 

II. Another criterion to follow in selecting material is, 
that only characteristic facts should be taught — facts that 
mark the man, the country, the age, and serve to distin- 
guish him or it from other men or ages. History is moral 
knowledge, and constant deference must be paid to the 
truth ; it is a matter of veracity. 

There are two ways in which this canon may be violated 
without teaching false facts. The first is, to teach facts that 
are not characteristic, and so convey false impressions. At 



48 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

this point sound judgment and regard for truth or reality 
are a sufficient safeguard. The other violation is, wrongly 
to combine characteristic facts, or to teach them in dispro- 
portion. In some respects avoidance of this error will be 
found more difficult than avoidance of the previous one. 
Elementary instruction in history moves above the level of 
real life, and the pupil is likely to form the impression that 
history is more picturesque and romantic than it really is. 
This is especially true of children of strong and active 
imagination. In fact, disproportion, or lack of perspective, 
arising from various sources, is one of the familiar evils 
attending his mode of study. However, the romance with 
which children clothe historical personages is generally 
soon corrected by practical experience ; while a strong dash 
of idealism in young life is much to be desired for numerous 
reasons. Still, the teacher needs just views and sound judg- 
ment. 

It must not be supposed that this criterion shuts the 
teacher up to grave and sober facts alone. A bit of romance, 
poetry, anecdote, or story, will often throw more light upon 
a historical situation, or let you deeper into a man's heart 
and life, than a page of careful analysis. The story of Alfred 
and the cakes, of Bruce and the spider, of Sidney and the 
cup of water, of Marion and the sweet potatoes, are not only 
thoroughly characteristic, but they tell us more than a labo- 
rious description. Who could fully describe Mr. Lincoln, 
leaving out all the familiar stories ? 

It is sometimes said, and especially by foreign critics, that 
our country is commonplace, and lacking in the elements of 
deep human interest. No doubt our history as a whole is 
more practical and prosaic than that of Europe. The life 
of Europe also is less picturesque and poetic than it was 
in former centuries. But it is far from true that American 
history is devoid of interest for children and youth; it is 
rather rich in these elements. The struggles of Columbus in 
quest of a patron, his voyages and discoveries ; the voyages 
and discoveries of the Cabots and of Hudson; the chival- 



THE CHOICE OF FACTS. 49 

rous, farrsighted Raleigh; the story-telling adventurer John 
Smith ; the Pilgrim Fathers ; the Dutch traders at New- 
York ; Perm, Calvert, and Oglethorpe — are all characters 
interesting to children. The romantic search of Ponce de 
Leon for the fountain of youth, and of De Soto for gold and 
a powerful Indian kingdom like that of the Montezumas 
that he might conquer, abound in picturesque and striking 
features. The labors of Cham plain in founding Canada? 
and of the Jesuits in their zeal for the souls of the savages. 
La Salle and the discovery of the Great West, have a per- 
ennial attraction. The early Indian wars present interesting 
characters and high qualities. The Revolution is rich in 
good material. Pioneer life and the tales of the border, as 
well as our later national struggles, may be drawn upon to 
excellent advantage. 

In that suggestive yet exasperating chapter of his Educa- 
tion entitled What Knowledge is of Most Worth. ? Mr. Her- 
bert Spencer expresses his profound contempt for'the history 
taught thirty years ago in. the schools of England. The his- 
torical information commonly given, he said, is almost value- 
less for purposes of guidance. Scarcely any of the facts set 
down in the school histories give any clew to the right prin- 
ciples of political action. The biographies of monarchs 
throw little light upon the science of society. Familiarity 
with court intrigues, plots, usurpations, and the like, with 
attending personalities, aid very little in elucidating the 
principles upon which national welfare depends. Neither 
The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, nor all other 
accounts of battles that history mentions, would enable the 
voter to vote more judiciously at the next election. Battles 
are squabbles for power. Such facts are unorganizable, and 
can be of no service in establishing principles of conduct, 
which is the chief use of facts ; they may amuse, but they 
do not instruct. Proper history is mainly omitted, not only 
from these works but also from the more ambitious ones 
written for adults. What we are really concerned to know 
is the natural history of events. We want all the facts that 



50 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

explain how nations grow and organize themselves. We 
want as full accounts as possible about governments and 
churches, but as little gossip about the men who have con- 
ducted them as may be. Industrial systems and acts should 
be delineated, and also the amusements and the morals of 
the people as illustrated in laws, habits, proverbs^ and deeds. 
The only history that is of practical value is descriptive 
sociology. The highest office that the historian can dis- 
charge is to furnish the material for a comparative sociol- 
ogy, and for subsequent determinations of the ultimate laws 
to which social phenomena conform. The common citizen 
lacks not only the materials for sociology, but also the very 
conception of what it is, and all because history and related 
subjects are badly taught. 

Such is a fair summary of the views relating to history 
presented in this celebrated essay. Considered with refer- 
ence to colleges and universities, these views are of great 
value ; considered with reference to primary and grammar 
schools, they are wholly erroneous, misleading, and imprac- 
ticable. Still further, Spencer's method would also fail in 
the academy or the high school, although the pupil's logical 
power has now become more developed than in the grades 
below. 

First, Mr. Spencer calls for a wholly disproportionate 
number of abstract facts. Many of his facts are not ele- 
mentary facts at all, but logical facts, reached by careful and 
more or less difficult trains of reasoning. To be sure, these 
facts and processes are very valuable and have their place, 
but all things according to their prober measure. For all 
stages of teaching, and especially the first and second ones, 
too little is made of the personal element. Historical action 
consists of the doings of men and women, and not of the 
operations of impersonal agents or general laws. The logic- 
al element is made too prominent, at least until the college 
or university has been reached. Mr. Spencer assumes that 
the common school boy possesses powers of analysis and 
synthesis that he does not possess. Not only can not such a 



THE CHOICE OF FACTS. 51 

schoolboy co-ordinate and systematize the abstract concep- 
tions supposed, but he can not even form them. He must 
move more in the objective world of transactions, and less 
in the subjective world of ideas. Possibly it is true that 
descriptive sociology is the only history that has practical 
value, although it may well be doubted; it maybe true — 
and here we are on much surer ground — that history teach- 
ing does not point up to sociology as it should do ; but it is 
absolutely certain that the teacher who begins his instruc- 
tion with Mr. Spencer's ideal immediately in view will never 
reach his goal. 

Mr. Bansome, in the preface to his Elementary History of 
England, commits a mistake similar to Mr. Spencer's. He 
regards history as essentially the history of political growth ; 
literature, anecdote, manners and customs being mere sur- 
plusage. "The human heart is much the same," he says, 
"whether it dresses in silk or broadcloth, and arbitrary 
taxation is as much a grievance whether the payers wear 
frock coats or shirts of mail. . . . Even the bloodiest of bat- 
tles, if it lead to nothing, is less attractive to the average 
schoolboy than the story how, through the tenacity and 
foresight of his ancestors, he will have the privilege of 
keeping his own money in his own pocket, unless it is voted 
for public purposes by his accredited representatives." An 
English reviewer exposes the serious mistake here made 
in a few sentences that set the whole subject at once in its 
proper light. 

We have never met with the schoolboy who would rather read 
of Scutage than the battle of Otterburn, or took more interest in 
Benevolences than in Flodden Field. The point at issue turns on 
the age of the pupil, and our protest is directed against any attempt 
to teach political history — history proper, if you will — before the 
age of thirteen or fourteen at the earliest. Up till this let us 
have biography, battles, incidents, anecdotes. Herodotus precedes 
Thucydides ; from the Lays of Ancient Rome we pass to Niebuhr 
and Mommsen. Fortunately, Mr. Ransome is better than his the- 
ories, and in the first few pages we have the old stories of Angles 



52 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

and angels, Alfred and the cakes, and the (comparatively) new story 
of the wild duck that built her nest in one of the Roman balnea at 
Bath. These are the parts that will stick in the memory ; and all 
about shire-moots and town-moots, the Assize of Clarendon and the 
Assize of Arms, will possibly gain marks, but leave no marks be- 
hind. . . . 

History for the child is to start from the present — from the 
known and visible, from the existing state and the local government 
of the place where he lives, just as geography should start from his 
native village and from the river and hills near by. 

It is true that history has not been so taught as to yield 
its fullest guidance value. It is also true that undue stress 
has been laid on battles, anecdotes of distinguished persons, 
and gossip. At the same time, these can not be dismissed so 
contemptuously as Mr. Spencer dismisses them. To be sure, 
many battles stand for little in the history of the race, but 
this is by no means true of all. It would be difficult to ex- 
aggerate the issues that hung on the battle of Marathon, the 
invasion of Greece by Xerxes, the triumph of Rome over 
Carthage, or the defeat of the Saracens by Charles Martel. 
The fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Turks, the 
resistance of the Dutch to Spain, the Civil War in England, 
and the American Revolution were followed by far-reaching 
results. Mr. Ransome's limitation of history to political 
growth is Dr. Freeman's mistake over again. No person is 
likely to commit the errors into which Mr. Spencer falls, 
who has had practical experience in teaching children his- 
tory. In this branch of education the Germans are very suc- 
cessful, and they teach both universal and German history 
to elementary pupils chiefly in the form of biography. 



CHAPTER V. 

METHODS OF TEACHING. 

References.— Hall, Freeman, Klemm, Compayre, Currie, Fitch, 
Barnes, Gordy and Twitchell, and Davidson : previous references. 
Bain: Education as a Science, VIIL, Practical Essays, VII. (The 
Art of Teaching); Trainer: United States History by the Brace 
Method ; Prince : Methods of Instruction and of Organization of the 
Schools of Germany, X. ; Foster : The Seminary Method of Original 
Study in the Historical Sciences, as Illustrated from Church His- 
tory ; Fling : The Academy, IV., 129, 212, (The German Historical 
Seminary. These articles give an interesting account of the semi- 
nary organizations and methods of Prof. Maurenbrecher, of Leipsic) ; 
Fredericq: Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and 
Political Science, Fifth Series, X. (Notes and Impressions concern- 
ing Advanced Instruction in History in England and Scotland), 
Eighth Series, V., VI., X. (The Study of History in Germany and 
France, and The Study of History in Belgium and Holland) ; H. B. 
Adams : Johns Hopkins University Studies, Second Series, I., II., 
(Special Methods of Historical Study, and New Methods of Studying 
History) ; White : Johns Hopkins Studies, Fifth Series, XII. (History 
and Politics) ; C. K. Adams : Papers of the American Historical As- 
sociation, IV., No. 1 (Recent Historical Work in the Colleges and 
Universities of Europe and America) ; Schouler : Papers of the Amer- 
ican Historical Association, IV., No. 3 (The Spirit of Historical Re- 
search) ; Rollins : The Academy, I., 133 (American History in Pre- 
paratory Schools) ; Hart : id., II., 256, 306 (History in High and Pre- 
paratory Schools) ; Burgess : id., III., 293 (The Method of Teaching 
College Preparatory History) ; Mrs. Barnes : id., IV., 285 (General 
History in High Schools) ; Hudson : id., III., 120 (History and Politi- 
cal Science) ; Salmon : id., V., VI., 310, 238 (Teaching of History in 
Academies and Colleges) ; Winterburn : id., VI., 148 (History Work 



54 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

in High Schools) ; Tout : The Educational Review, III., 199 (A Short 
Analysis of English History) ; Hughes : Education, II., 410 (Topical 
Teaching of History) ; Porter : id., III., 136 (The Study of History) ; 
Greenwood: id., VI., 23 (Teaching History); Fisher, id., VI., 588 
(Universal History) ; Judson : id., VI., 19 (Teaching History in Sec- 
ondary Schools); Hall: id., VII., 470 (History of the Civil War, 
What and How much should be Taught f) ; Thorpe : id., VI., 86 
(Teaching of American History); Gardner: id., VIII., 547, 663, IX., 
35, 109 (Outline Notes of the Renaissance and of the Reformation) ; 
Lowry : id., VII., 447 (Philosophy of State and of History) ; Thorpe ; 
id., VIII., 351 (History and Economics in Manual Training Schools) ; 
Wallace: id., IX., 346 (Study of History through Biography); 
Mowry : id., IX., 134 (The Teacher's Independent Study of History). 

It is quite commonly conceded by competent judges that 
in no other schools are such substantial results reached in 
teaching history as in those of Germany. It will help us 
on our way to glance at the general features of the instruc- 
tion that they furnish. 

The first thing to be remarked is, that in the best of these 
schools the teacher in the beginning is the sole agent of in- 
struction. No room is found for a text-book, but especially 
trained teachers conduct the pupil over a carefully prepared 
course of study. 

The second thing is, that the primary course is wholly 
biographical ; the lessons are all narratives, tales, stories, and 
biographies of important historical personages. At the end 
of two years, two lessons having been given a week, it is 
found that a large number of valuable facts have been fixed 
in the pupil's mind ; and that the pupil, instead of finding 
the lessons dry and tiresome, has rather found them a source 
of positive pleasure and recreation. 

At the age of twelve a step forward is taken. The teacher 
now conducts the pupil the second time over the former 
course, but with a somewhat different end in view ; the in- 
dividual man falls a little into the background, while the 
nation moves forward. For example, the subject is now the 
story of the second Punic war — not the story of Hannibal. 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 55 

More attention is paid to historical connection, and particu- 
larly to causal connection. The range of facts is expanded 
and amplified. At the end of three years more the pupil, 
being now fifteen years of age, has made two surveys of uni- 
versal history, one smaller and one larger. While he is 
making the second survey, the teacher gives him a little 
pamphlet, commonly of the teacher's own preparation, a 
mere sketch of dates and names, to help him to retain and 
recall the main points of the oral lessons ; and this is the 
only text-book. 

The three or four years that now follow are given to en- 
larging and supplementing the outline that has been so thor- 
oughly inculcated. In addition the pupil may, under direc- 
tion, take up and carefully pursue the history of his own 
country, or some particular historical period, as the Refor- 
mation, or of the French Revolution — that is, specialization 
in a mild form now begins. 

Dr. L. R. Klemm reports the excellence of the historical 
instruction in a school that he visited in Rhenish Prussia. 
The method followed, which was in a C grammar, or sixth 
grade, he thus describes : 

1. A biographical narrative was given by the teacher, who spoke 
in very simple, appropriate language, but feelingly, with the glow of 
enthusiasm and the chest-tone of conviction. He made each pupil 
identify himself with the hero of the story. The map was fre- 
quently used or referred to. Bits of poetry taken from the Reader 
were interwoven, and circumstances of our time, as well as persons 
of very recent history, were mentioned at proper occasions. The 
attention was breathless. 

2. The story was then repeated by pupils, who were now and then 
interrupted by leading questions. The answers were again used to 
develop new thoughts not brought out by the first narration. Par- 
ticularly was it cause and effect, and the moral value of certain his- 
torical actions which claimed the attention of the teacher. To me 
it was very instructive to see these children search for analogous 
cases in human life as they knew it. 

3. The pupils were led to search in their stores of historical 

6 



56 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

knowledge for analogous cases, or cases of decided contrast. This 
gave me an insight into the extent of their knowledge. When, for 
instance, certain civil virtues were spoken of, they mentioned cases 
which revealed a very laudable familiarity with history. But all 
their knowledge had been grouped around a number of centers — 
that is, great men. That is to say, their knowledge had been gained 
through biographies. 

4. The pupils were told to write, in a connected narration, what 
they had just learned. This proved a fertile composition exercise, 
because the pupils had something to write about — a thing that is 
not quite so frequent in schools as it seems desirable. 

The teacher who gave Dr. Klemm this outline also fur- 
nished him with a statement of the principles that should 
underlie instruction in history. 

The aim should be " to nourish and strengthen all the powers of 
the soul, interest, emotion, and volition" " The pupil's intellect 
is increased by making him familiar with historical deeds," " by 
affording comparisons and making distinctions, by causing keen 
judgment and correct conclusions." "The pupil's heart is influ- 
enced by instruction in history, because many great, sublime, noble, 
and beautiful actions and motives are presented, which cause pleas- 
ure and lead to imitation, unconsciously to the pupil." " The pu- 
pil's will-power is greatly stimulated by instruction in history, be- 
cause he is warned and inspired by truth, right, and duty, for love of 
country and his fellow-men." / 

Discussing the conditions necessary to secure these ends, 
this,teacher presented the following points : 

1. That the teacher of history be a person whose heart is full 
of patriotism, and beats strongly for truth, right, and duty. 2. 
That the instruction be not a mere recital of names and dates, of 
battles and acquisitions of land, nor dissertations upon abstract 
ideas and generalities, but, above all, a simple narration of deeds and 
events, and a glowing description of persons and circumstances. 3. 
That the teacher connect the new historical knowledge with circum- 
stances and conditions, such as are either known to the pupils or 
are near enough at hand to draw them into the discussion. 4. That 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 57 

the pupil should not be allowed to remain receptive, but must be 
induced to be active in this study. 5. That the teacher should in- 
duce his pupils to compare similar and dissimilar actions and persons, 
and thereby cause judgment upon cause and effect from a moral or 
ethical standpoint, so that not merely the intellect be developed, but 
also the heart and the will. 6. That instruction in history be brought 
into organic connection with the study of language : for this reason, 
reading is to be brought in as an assistant. Kecitations of patriotic 
poems and ballads can be woven in profitably, and that geography 
must aid history is self-evident. 

To this last condition I may add that, in the case of chil- 
dren and young persons, the poem is a most effective form 
of teaching. Metrical composition, like other rhythmical 
movements, takes fast hold of the mind, and all the more if 
reaHy poetic. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, the best 
of the Scottish ballads, as Chevy Chase and the Battle of 
Otter burn, and Paul Revere's Ride, may be given as ex- 
amples. The volumes edited by Mr. Longfellow, entitled 
Poems of Places, may be searched with good results by both 
the teacher of geography and of history. 

Such is the preparation that the German school gives for 
that matchless work in history which is the praise of the 
German universities. It will be seen that a much longer 
time is given to the subject than in our schools ; but it is not 
too long if thorough instruction is to be secured. 

The Herbart-Ziller school of pedagogists, who lay such 
great stress upon history, say instruction should begin at 
the beginning of school life. Holding that the child's love 
of stories is the first awakening of his mind to the historic 
interest, they make it their first endeavor to stimulate this 
love by systematic story -telling. The art of telling a story 
they regard as the final test of a teacher's skill, and they 
assign it a prominent place in normal-school instruction. 
Still further, they have worked out a primary programme 
in accordance with their pedagogical scheme. They have 
arranged a number of Grimm's tales, which they make the 
center of instruction for the first school vear. These stories 



58 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

are told and retold by the teacher, reproduced item by item 
by the children, and around them are clustered moral and 
religious sentiments, material information, and illustrative 
object-lessons. The next year, connected stories from Rob- 
inson Crusoe are treated in the same manner. Then come 
selected tales from the Old Testament, and still later selec- 
tions from the Odyssey, the Norse Sagas, Shakespeare, He- 
rodotus, Livy, Xenophon, and others in due order. In this 
way the historical sense is developed and centers of interest 
created, before technical instruction begins. 

Several points occurring in this account of German 
schools challenge consideration. The first is, that it does 
not so much matter when the first lessons are given, provided 
they are of the right kind. The second is, that the first con- 
nected school lessons should relate to the pupil's own coun- 
try or home region. Such lessons will throw a glow of in- 
terest upon the parallel lessons in geography and stimulate 
patriotism. The third is, that the story should be the form 
in which the instruction is cast. Reference has been made 
in an earlier chapter to the marked influence of history in 
developing patriotism in the Jews. It may be added that no 
people ever found more admirable material for such a pur- 
pose. The stories of the Old Testament— of Abraham, Joseph, 
Moses, David, and Daniel — that cling so closely to the 
memory, are parts of their national history, and not merely, 
as with us, moral and religious lessons. The supervising 
authority makes the number of facts to be taught, and even 
the particular facts, as definite as possible — it would seem 
too definite. For example, in the elementary schools of Ber- 
lin one hundred and sixteen particular dates are required 
to be memorized. In the elementary school little use is 
made of the text-book. The Germans keep clearly in view, 
as an American writer puts it, that "at least three fourths 
of all the time spent by a boy of twelve in trying to learn a 
hard lesson out of a book is time thrown away. Perhaps 
one fourth of the time is devoted to more or less desperate 
and conscious effort ; but the large remaining portion is 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 59 

dawdled away in thinking of the last game of ball and long- 
ing for the next game of tag." 

Because only one fourth of the time that a boy of twelve 
spends in learning a history lesson, or any other lesson, out 
of a book is efficacious, it does not follow that he should 
make no use of books. The end of scholastic discipline is 
power to get all the knowledge and truth, thought and fancy, 
wit and wisdom, from the printed page that it holds — an end 
that can be reached only when the teacher keeps it steadily 
in view from the beginning. Of necessity, a child's first 
tuition is oral, but he must be progressively introduced to 
books. Hence the teacher who persists in saving for the 
present the time dawdled away over the book, will lose it in 
the end. A child can learn to use books only by using them. 
The judicious mingling of oral and book lessons is indeed 
no easy matter. Doubtless too much stress was formerly 
placed on book lessons ; possibly too little stress is placed 
upon them at present. At least, a well-trained pupil twelve 
years of age should begin to depend upon a historical text- 
book. Of course, he has been reading books of tales, stories, 
and the like from the time that he could first read at all. 

The advantages of oral teaching are vivacity and inter- 
est ; the disadvantages are vagueness and incompleteness. 
The pupil studying history is almost certain to get too many 
indefinite and general ideas, and too few fixed and definite 
facts. This failure the German teacher seeks to overcome 
by making the path to be trodden plain and straight, and 
then by going over it again and again. It should be noticed 
also that the printed outline which he puts into the child's 
hand is the skeleton of the instruction. The disadvantages of 
the text-book in the upper classes of the elementary schools 
are lack of intelligence and interest — a fatal defect unless it 
can be overcome ; the advantages are the opportunity for 
exactness and thoroughness. The two elements should be 
thoroughly blended — text-book lessons and oral illustration. 
The extremes to be avoided are fact-cramming on the one 
part, and flowing talk on the other. 



60 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

The topical method of study has gained considerable 
currency. Discarding the text-book, the teacher prints or 
writes on slips of paper, or puts on the blackboard, the topics 
that form the subjects of the succeeding lessons, and then 
sends the class to the library, or such other sources of in- 
formation as they have at hand, furnishing them, of course, 
the needed hints and directions regarding the choice of books 
and their use. Then the pupils report at the next recitation, 
sometimes orally, and sometimes in writing. It is a sort of 
a rudimentary seminary, of which more will soon be said. 

Well handled, this method has undeniable excellences. 
It creates interest and the spirit of investigation ; it famil- 
iarizes the pupil with the use of books and libraries ; it sup- 
plies, so far as the use of different authorities can do so, a 
useful check on hasty opinion and over-confidence, and is a 
good introduction to the methods of self-culture. The evils 
of the method are equally obvious. It is accompanied by 
more or less aimless effort. Thoroughly worked, it con- 
sumes much time. It is apt to land the pupil in the region 
of vague information and general impressions rather than 
of definite knowledge. The facts and ideas acquired are lit- 
tle likely to be well organized or integrated in the mind. 
On the whole, the topical method in an exclusive sense can 
not be recommended at any stage of progress. An exclusive 
use of it in the elementary school would be preposterous, in 
the secondary school absurd, in the college a mistake. Still, 
at no stage of progress after the preliminary one should it 
be wholly discarded. Some topical work may be assigned 
in the elementary school, more in the high school and acad- 
emy, and still more in the college. 

The principles already stated will enable us to judge of 
the lecture. Here the first thing to be said is that the formal 
lecture, as a regular means of instruction, should have no 
place below the college, no matter what the subject of in- 
struction may be. It first liquefies in vague impressions, 
and then evaporates in talk ; or, if not, then the teacher 
must deliver the matter so slowly that the pupil can write 



METHODS OF TEACHING. (ft 

down everything that is important, thus in effect making a 
text-book as he goes along. As soon, therefore, as the pupil 
is able to use a text-book to advantage, why not supply him 
with one already prepared, making it the basis of the in- 
struction, and adding the needed oral amplification ? 

In the college the case is somewhat different. Here two 
points may be urged in favor of the lecture. The first is, 
that a good lecturer will generate more interest and enthu- 
siasm than a teacher conducting book recitations, and so 
will tend to send his students to the library to investigate 
for themselves. The other is, that, seizing bold facts and 
handling large generalizations, he will help the student thor- 
oughly to unify and organize the matter which it is most 
important for him to remember. A good lecturer can do 
both of these things if his students have the requisite prep- 
aration — a phrase that here means considerable historical 
knowledge, as well as mental discipline, and experience in 
note-taking. The lecture is not the proper vehicle for con- 
veying elementary knowledge of history. Experience often 
shows that courses of lectures that have been taken with 
interest and are recalled with pleasure, have left little behind 
them save mistaken notions and vague ideas. The lecturer 
will therefore find it extremely advantageous to put into his 
students' hands a text-book of moderate size, running along 
the line of his course, requiring them to read thoroughly 
designated portions of it in advance. The book will serve 
as a path-breaker. For example, Seebohm's Protestant Eevo- 
lution would admirably guide a course of lectures on the 
Eeformation. Eeferences to the needed authorities will be 
given as a matter of course. Or, if the lecturer can not find 
a hand-book to his mind, he should at least furnish his 
students with a printed syllabus of his lectures, both to 
assist them in breaking the ground and to furnish a mechan- 
ism for the distribution of the matter. 

Of its kind, I know nothing that is better than Dr. Alex- 
ander Bain's essay entitled The Art of Study. I venture to 
quote three or four short paragraphs ; save the last one, it 



62 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

will be seen that they have no exclusive reference to his- 
tory : 

Our first maxim is, " Select a text-book-in-chief." The mean- 
ing is, that when a large subject is to be overtaken by book study 
alone, some one work should be chosen to apply to, in the first in- 
stance, which work should be conned and mastered before any 
other is taken up. There being, in most subjects, a variety of good 
books, the thorough student will not be satisfied in the long run 
without consulting several, and perhaps making a study of them all ; 
yet it is unwise to distract the attention with more than one, while 
the elements are to be learned. In geometry the pupil begins upon 
Euclid, or some other compendium, and is not allowed to deviate 
from the single line of his author. If he is once thoroughly at home 
on the main ideas and the leading propositions of geometry, he is 
safe in dipping into other manuals, in comparing the differences of 
treatment, and in widening his knowledge by additional theorems, 
and by various modes of demonstration. . . . 

Undoubtedly the best of all ways of learning anything is to 
have a competent master to dole out a fixed quantity every day, just 
sufficient to be taken in, and no more ; the pupils to apply them- 
selves to the matter so imparted, and to do nothing else. The 
singleness of aim is favorable to the greatest rapidity of acquire- 
ment ; and any defects are to be left out of account, until one thread 
of ideas is firmly set in the mind. Not infrequently, however, and 
not improperly, the teacher has a text-book in aid of his oral in- 
structions. To make this a help, and not a hindrance, demands the 
greatest delicacy ; the sole consideration being that the pupil must 
be kept in one single line of thought, and never be required to com- 
prehend, on the same point, conflicting or varying statements. Even 
the foot-notes to a work may have to be disregarded in the first 
instance. They may act like a second author, and keep up an irri- 
tating friction. . . . 

The subjects that depend for their full comprehension upon a 
certain method and order of details are numerous, and include the 
most important branches of human culture. The sciences, in mass, 
are avowedly of this character ; even such departments as theology, 
ethics, rhetoric, and criticism have their definite form ; and until 
the mind of the student is fully impressed with this, all the particu- 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 63 

lars are vague and chaotic, and comparatively useless for practical 
application. So, any subject cast in a polemic form must be re- 
ceived and held in the connection thereby given to it. If the argu- 
ments pro and con fall out of their places in the mind of the reader, 
their force is missed or misconceived. 

History is pre-eminently a subject for method, and therefore 
involves some such plan as is here recommended. Every narrative 
read otherwise than for mere amusement, as we read a novel, should 
leave in the mind (1) the chronological sequence (more or less de- 
tailed) and (2) the causal sequence — that is, the influences at work 
in bringing about the events. These are best gained by application 
to a single work in the first place ; other works being resorted to in 
due time. 

It will be observed that Dr. Bain lays down three funda- 
mental propositions, viz. : 1. In the early days of education 
instruction must be narrow. 2. It must be thorough. 3. 
Only when the pupil is " thoroughly at home on the main 
ideas,'' only when u one thread of ideas is firmly set in the 
mind," only when " one single Hue of thought/' has been 
wrought into the mental substance, should the teacher be- 
gin to be discursive and " broaden "the work. In history, 
what folly to fall to comparing, interpreting, and discussing 
before the pupil has amassed a store of facts on which to set 
his reflective faculties at work ! In dealing with the history 
of a country or nation, the first thing to be done is to fix in 
the pupil's mind firmly the main points — an outline — a 
framework — in which he can dispose and arrange minor 
facts and details as he^requires them ; or, to change the 
figure, to provide his mind with a supply of hooks and pegs 
on which he can hang up, in proper order and in due rela- 
tion, new facts and ideas as he masters them. 

it may be added that readers made up of lessons devoted 
to some one subject, as geography or history, no doubt have 
a certain use in schools. They are useful, however, as read- 
ers rather than as geographies or histories. Experience 
shows that ordinary reading lessons are not an effective 
vehicle of specific instruction in any branch of knowledge. 



64 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

"While the historical reader will supplement the regular in- 
struction in history, it can not be made to take the place of 
the regular text-book. 

In this survey the lesson must not be overlooked. 
The teacher should not encourage or permit the pupil to de- 
pend upon the language of an author, save where language 
is a real part of the substance. His business is not " to sit 
behind a book and hear pupils say their lessons." Recita- 
tions that closely follow the text commonly show that the 
attention has been fixed on the words rather than on the 
matter. A memory that lays hold of subject-matter should 
be stimulated rather than a merely verbal memory. Now 
and then we meet a mind that takes up everything, words 
and matter alike, but such minds are few and far between. 
In his teaching days General Garfield sometimes told of a 
student of his who commanded much admiration by a recita- 
tion of a two-and-a-half -page description of a theodolite, but 
who showed plainly enough before the close of the hour 
that he had merely committed to memory the words, and 
that he had no conception of the construction, adjustment, 
and use of the instrument that he had described with such 
volubility. Once more, the practice of picking out of stu- 
dents' minds the points of a lesson by special questions, and 
especially by questions which suggest the answer^ can not 
be too strongly condemned. I recall some college students 
who often related with much glee how their professor, sit- 
ting behind Green's Short History, asked a halting student 
" Was there liberty ? " and received the prompt reply, " There 
was liberty." 

The proper method is to assign to each pupil a topic, re- 
quiring him to develop it in his own way, and then, when 
he has finished, to bring out by question and answer such 
points as need further attention, unless, indeed, he has made 
so poor a recitation that the topic should be assigned to a 
second pupil. In this way freedom, resource, and good prep- 
aration will be promoted. The recitations may be clumsy 
and halting at first, but they will soon gain in fullness and 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 65 

freedom. Accordingly, a text-book that carefully analyzes 
the matter, especially a book that makes use of side-heads, 
is a distinct advantage ; and if such analysis is lacking, the 
teacher should show the class how to make one for- them- 
selves. The teacher may make out a list of topics on paper 
to be used in conducting the recitation ; but in no case 
should he suffer himself to become dependent upon his book. 
The oral amplification may be given as the topics pass by, or 
at the close of the lesson, as circumstances may determine. 

Of quizzes, reviews, and examinations little need be said. 
It can not be held that they are more or less useful in teach- 
ing history than in teaching other subjects that are made up 
largely of fact material. The office of such exercises in 
brightening the memory and the imagination, and in more 
thoroughly organizing facts that have been acquired, thus 
constituting proper knowledge, is well understood by good 
teachers. It should, however, be plainly stated that the 
quiz is a necessary part of the lecture method when it is made 
truly effective. 

Before passing to the final topic, it is important to ob- 
serve that in the choice and combination of methods a great 
deal depends upon the teacher as well as upon the class. 
Good lecturers sometimes fail as text-book teachers, and per- 
haps good text-book teachers still more frequently fail as 
lecturers. 

The Germans, deeply impressed by the value and even 
necessity to university students of original studies, invented 
the Seminar, as a means whereby such students could carry 
on such studies in various branches of knowledge, history 
included, under the direction of a competent professor. In 
its native country it has abundantly justified its invention. 
Translated to the United States, and baptized the "semina- 
ry," it is justifying itself over again. Only two or three 
things need be said about the historical seminary in this 
place. 

The first is, that its proper function lies in the field of 
original work. From this it follows necessarily that the 



66 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

students admitted to it should be picked students, not only 
mature of mind, but already well instructed in history and 
its methods, and able by reason of practice to carry on to 
advantage lines of independent study under general super- 
vision. It follows also that the professor himself should be 
a picked man, well acquainted with original sources and 
other authorities, and capable of directing and inspiring 
students. These points it is important to state in the plain- 
est language, because there is reason to fear a more or less 
general travesty of " seminary methods " the country over. 
The lecture has already made its way into some strange 
places, and we need not be surprised to see the seminary fol- 
low in its wake. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE ORGANIZATION OF FACTS. 

References. — See previous references to pedagogical writers and 
historical specialists. Also Gruizot: History of Civilization (pas- 
sim) ; Mace : Papers of the American Historical Association, V., 
No. Ill, (The Organization of Material). On Organization and 
Systematization, see the current text-writers on psychology. 

A distinguished French writer lately deceased, M. Taine, 
says the word u to organize," which he dates from the Revo- 
lution and the First Empire, " summarizes the success of 
well-ordered and distributive reason, the vast and happy 
effects of the art which consists in simplifying, classifying, 
and subtracting." No art is so necessary to the teacher, 
either in the sphere of administration or in the sphere of in- 
struction. I shall first explain what this art is, and then 
make a particular application to history. 

We may roughly divide school studies into two groups. 
Those of the first group begin with certain fundamental and 
intuitive ideas, and proceed by means of deduction. They 
are the proper logical studies, and the best examples of them 
are the pure mathematics. Mathematical data are defini- 
tions and axioms, facts of the mind and not of observation ; 
the great aim of the teacher is to point out, and of the pupil 
to discover, the necessary relations existing between these 
data, and so to build them, and the other truths that are dis- 
covered on the way, into an orderly and symmetrical whole 
called algebra, or geometry. Such, in the mathematical 
sphere, is organization. 

Studies of the second group begin with observed object- 



68 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

ive facts, and proceed by induction. These data are empiri- 
cal and not logical ideas. The primal mental operations 
are not those of intuition, conception, and reasoning, but 
observation and memory. Books are secondary sources of 
information, and can be understood only through a pre- 
viously acquired store of primary and personal information. 
The facts that we have seen explain to us the facts which we 
hear or read. Examples of such studies are botany, zoology, 
the natural sciences generally, geography, and history. 

The successful prosecution of any one of this second 
group of studies involves the accumulation of a large fund 
of facts, but also something more. Facts of themselves do 
not constitute proper knowledge ; they are at best but infor- 
mation, and the man who possesses them in the largest 
abundance is not necessarily the best instructed man. 
Facts do not exist separate and alone either in Nature or 
history ; they are always connected, and they can not be 
understood or explained out of their connections. The 
bones of the human body thrown loosely into a box are not 
a skeleton ; a pile of dry plants is not an herbarium ; they 
must be brought together and secured in their natural rela- 
tions. The possession of a mass of botanical or geographical 
facts, no matter how large, does not make a man a botanist 
or a geographer ; his facts must be organized, fact brought 
to its related fact, as bone to its related bone. In other 
words, these studies are not wholly empirical, but partly 
logical as well ; the studies, in fact, do not exist until the 
many are reduced to the one, and unity is seen in diversity ; 
until, that is, the primary data are viewed under a philo- 
sophical aspect. We speak of the organization of knowl- 
ledge, sometimes forgetting, perhaps, that knowledge is the 
product of organization. Science has no place for rudes et 
indigestas moles. 

Without its power of integration or organization the 
mind would be feeble indeed. As says Sir William Hamil- 
ton, " We are lost in the multitude of the objects presented 
to our observation, and it is only by assorting them in 



THE ORGANIZATION OF FACTS. (J 9 

classes that we can reduce ,the infinity of Nature to the 
finitude of mind." He quotes Anaxagoras, u The mind 
knows when it subdues its objects, when it reduces the many 
to the one " ; and remarks himself, " All languages express 
the mental operations by words which denote a reduction of 
the many to the one," as " synthesis," " cogitate," conceive," 
" comprehend," " cognize," and many more. 

Too much stress can not be placed on organization as es- 
sential to real knowledge. But, further, it is as necessary to 
its retention as to its acquirement. The memory is unable 
to cope with much unrelated and discursive material — that 
is, facts can no more be remembered irrespective of their 
relations than they can be understood and explained. It is 
easier to remember two things in relation than either one 
separately. In fact, no one thing can be remembered sepa- 
rately. Within limits, we lighten the burden by increasing 
it. The operations of the memory are controlled by the laws 
of association ; and the laws of association govern the or- 
ganization of empirical data. 

These two elements run parallel throughout the study 
of history, as throughout all other fact studies, but in quite 
different proportions in different periods. Facts continue to 
be the subject-matter to the end of the course ; logical ideas 
are present at its beginning. The simplest narrative or tale 
involves at least two facts or incidents, and so the idea of 
time or succession. The facts of environment, or spatial 
relation, also occur at once, and the idea of cause is not 
long in appearing. While these ideas need not be made 
the subject of abstract thought, and at first should not be, 
they will nevertheless be present in the mind of the teacher, 
and will gradually work their way into the mind of the 
pupil. 

Individual events compose a series of events ; but to un- 
derstand the events singly, it is as necessary to have a knowl- 
edge of the series as it is to have a knowledge of the indi- 
vidual facts in order to understand the series. All organ- 
ized knowledge begins with learning a certain number of 



70 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

facts and truths; and these must not be Hmited in their 
range, but comprehensive. No individual square mile or 
acre of the earth's surface can be explained in itself alone ; 
no individual country, island, or continent can be thus de- 
scribed ; to understand even the smallest geographical unit, 
one must have some knowledge of the whole globe. The 
moon can be described only in relation to the earth, the earth 
only in relation to the sun, the sun only in relation to its 
system and the heavens as a whole. No one can appreciate 
the significance of a missing link, or even have an idea of 
what a link is, until he has previously learned something of 
the chain of which it is a part. We can explain the growth 
and prosperity of a city only by taking account of the region 
that contributes to its population and wealth. A man at 
any particular period of his career — as Cromwell when he 
became Lord Protector, Napoleon when he assumed the im- 
perial crown, or Lincoln when he was inaugurated President 
— is an absolute enigma, cut off from his own previous life 
and the life of his country. The earth brings forth fruit of 
herself, first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn 
in the ear. Thus, in all things there is an order of succes- 
sion founded on the law formulated by Mr. Spencer : 
" There can be no correct idea of a part without a correct 
idea of the correlative whole." 

We must learn some individual facts before we can take 
up the series ; we must go from the individual to the gen- 
eral, and yet the individual is never fully understood until 
it is considered in connection with the general. Hence the 
teaching of history involves : (I) Fixing permanently in the 
mind those single facts that determine the general move- 
ment, or some selected portion of it ; (2) study of the rela- 
tions of these facts in the development of society ; (3) a more 
thorough investigation of social and political elements, with 
a special reference to causal relations. 

This analysis corresponds in a general way to the three 
stages of educational progress. The fact element will be 
found in the third stage, the logical element in the first 



THE ORGANIZATION OF FACTS. 71 

stage ; the characteristic differences being the kinds of facts 
and relations dealt with in the different stages and the rela- 
tive stress laid upon them. What a distinguished pedagog- 
ist says of the acquisition of knowledge in general, is particu- 
larly true of geographical and historical knowledge : 

The elementary school will always have the character of memory 
work stamped upon it, no matter how much the educational re- 
formers may improve its methods. It is not easy to overvalue the 
impulse of such men as Pestalozzi and Froebel. But the child's mind 
cannot seize great syntheses. He bites off, as it were, only small 
fragments of truth at best. He gets isolated data, and sees only 
feebly the vast network of interrelation in the world. This frag- 
mentary, isolated character belongs essentially to primary education. 
But just as surely does secondary education deal with relations and 
functions and processes. It is the stage of crude generalization. 
But college education strives to superinduce on the mind the habit 
of seeing the unity of things. The curriculum of the college is 
therefore called the philosophical faculty, using the word " faculty " 
in the French sense of the word faculte. * 

Accordingly, the main thing that the teacher of history 
in the primary school has to do, and largely so in the sec- 
ondary school, is to teach facts. The facts taught in these 
schools constitute the very foundations of the whole after 
superstructure. While facts do not make a man a historian, 
he cannot be a historian without them. Teachers of a 
philosophical turn may dislike this humble work ; they may 
speak of it contemptuously as " mere memorizing," but no 
real educator speaks slightingly of the memory. The com- 
mon sense of mankind rightly adjudges praise to the man 
having a rich store of information. t 

* Dr. W. T. Harris : Eeport of Commissioner of Education, 1888-'89, lviii. 

t The current depreciation of the memory is largely unreasonable and 
mischievous. To exalt the logical faculties is all right; to belittle the 
faculties ot retention and reproduction is all wrong. It is not impertinent 
to say that if a man has a fine memory there is no reason why he should 
be ashamed of it. Professor James may be quoted on the broader aspect of 
this subject : 

7 



72 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

No doubt a majority of teachers have heretofore com- 
mitted a serious mistake at this point. They have striven 
by sheer force of repetition to crowd as many facts as pos- 
sible into the pupil's mind. Nor were these facts always by 
any means well chosen. They paid little attention to the 
pupil's power of assimilation, and perhaps still less to the 
organization of what they taught. They largely lost the 
meaning of facts, the stream of thought, the life of the ac- 
tion, the interest of the story. Such teaching is unspeak- 
ably dry and uninteresting, and is worse than no teaching 
at all. It is far better to leave the child to such spontane- 
ous interest in history as may spring up within him, than to 
blunt the edge of his mind with mere tables of dates and 
other indigestible material. The "philosophy of history" 
may be a large phrase for the elementary teacher, but what 
will lead up to it should find a place in the elementary 
school. 

Things must be done in their proper time and according 
to their just measure. The old teachers whom I have criti- 
cised are not so far out of the way as those new ones who 
teach nothing that is definite or particular, but waste their 
time and effort in the vain endeavor to impart general views 
and large relations for which their pupils are not prepared. 
It is folly to speak of the relations existing between facts that 
the pupil does not know ; to mention cause and effect until 
the antecedent and consequent have been grasped ; to seek 
to organize materials that have never been gathered. With 

" No one probably was ever effective on a voluminous scale without a 
high degree of this physiological retentiveness. In the practical as in the 
theoretic life, the man whose acquisitions stick is the man who is always 
achieving and advancing ; whilst his neighbors, spending most of their time 
in relearning what they once knew but have forgotten, simply hold their 
own. A Charlemagne, a Luther, a Leibnitz, a Walter Scott — any example, 
in short, of your quarto or folio editions of mankind — must needs have 
amazing retentiveness of the purely physiological sort. Men without this 
retentiveness may excel in the quality of their work at this point or at that, 
but will never do such mighty sums of it, or be influential contemporane- 
ously on such a scale." — Psychology, vol. i, p. 660. 



THE ORGANIZATION OF FACTS. 73 

relations, as such, the teacher of history has nothing to do. 
Relations are no more history than the tendons which hold 
his bones together are a man's anatomy. 

It is also necessary to observe that the organization of 
knowledge is not the same thing as discoursing about its or- 
ganization. Either of these things may be present without 
the other. The wise teacher will put facts in their proper 
relations from the very first stage of his work ; he will di- 
rect the attention of the pupil to relations progressively as 
the pupil is ready to receive them ; he will give them the 
largest place when he comes to deal with methods of his- 
torical investigation. 

At the end of this chapter I may state the categories or 
principles with reference to which historical facts should be 
grouped or organized : 

1. Time, or the chronological relation. 

2. Place, or the geographical relation. 

3. Cause and effect, or the causal relation. 

This is exhaustive of the subject. However, as the per- 
sonal element is so prominent, it will be wise, particularly in 
elementary work, to divide the third category, and to group 
such facts as conspicuously admit of it with reference to per- 
sonal agents. Two cautionary remarks should be added. 

The first is, that generalization must not be thrust out of 
its place. Such a work as Colonel Dodge's Bird's-eye View 
of Our Civil War, or Lavisse's General View of the Political 
History of Europe, is not a book for the beginner : a com- 
plete conspectus represents the end of historical study. 

The second remark is, that the logical element in history 
must not be suffered to override the fact element. This is a 
point of no small danger, particularly in advanced study. 
Hamilton observes that the tendency to generalize our 
knowledge •' is not only an effective means of discovery, but 
likewise an abundant source of error," illustrating the ob- 
servation with numerous examples of the substitution of 
theory and hypothesis for fact. Guizot tells us, in a passage 



74 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

that I shall quote at length in another place, that " nothing 
tortures history more than logic. " Some one has pertinently 
ohserved that " a child has a healthy appetite for facts ; he 
likes action and story " ; the child should therefore he suita- 
bly served with facts, action, and story while he craves them, 
postponing theorizing until the time comes for theories. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE TIME RELATION IN HISTORY : CHRONOLOGY. 

References. — The best practical suggestions on the handling of 
dates are found in the pedagogical writers. Wells has good re- 
marks ; see also Schafi and Carlyle, previous references. Freeman : 
Four Lectures on European History and The Unity of History. 
For a division of our own history, The Epochs of American His- 
tory Series may be commended. The numerous chronological 
schemes, charts, and dictionaries of dates give information rather 
than method. On the science of chronology and chronological sys- 
tems, the articles on those subjects in the cyclopaedias may be con- 
sulted. 

History is dynamic, not static. It is action or move- 
ment. Hence the historian has by no means discharged his 
function when he has inventoried historical facts as they 
existed at a given time, or described a particular situation. 
He does indeed sometimes give such an inventory or descrip- 
tion, but this he does on account of something that has gone 
before or of something that is to foHow after. 

All action or movement is in time. Without time the 
very idea is impossible. The mere facts of history as facts 
could be inventoried without regard to time, like the facts 
of geography or chemistry, and thus treated they might 
have a certain value ; but such an inventory would not be 
history. There would be no life or action, no development 
or evolution, no progress or becoming. Chronology has 
therefore been called one of the two eyes of history. 

The practical conclusion which we reach is, that the 
teacher of history must pay attention to time relations and 



76 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

to dates. But what dates ? how many dates ? and how shall 
the dates be taught? Before attempting answers to these 
questions, we must pay attention to some preliminary 
matters. 

The child's first lesson in chronology is the formation of 
the ideas expressed by the words u before " and u after," or 
the relation of succession. He learns that some things are, 
that others were, and afterward generalizes these ideas as the 
present and the past. His next lesson is to mark more 
definitely the relation of past events to the present ; he now 
struggles with the question, How long ? He becomes famil- 
iar with the phrases " this morning," " yesterday," " a week 
ago," and the like, slowly finding out their meaning by per- 
sonal experience. At first the statements that Solomon 
lived twenty-five hundred years ago, Julius Caesar two thou- 
sand years ago, and Washington a century ago, mean little 
more than that these men are now dead, and that they died 
in the order named. Practically, you might as well say 
that they lived twenty-five years, twenty years ago, and one 
year ago. The steps by which the child makes his way 
along this chronological path should be analyzed. 

1. The succession of one's bodily sensations, as hunger 
and thirst and weariness, the order of outward events, and 
the train of his ideas, are his first time measures. Rosalind 
is a good psychologist when she tells Orlando that time trots 
hard with a young maid between the contract of her mar- 
riage and the day it is solemnized, that he ambles with a 
priest who lacks Latin and a rich man who has not the 
gout, that he gallops hard with a thief to the gallows, and 
stands still with lawyers in their vacations. That is, time 
moves at a more rapid pace with those whose minds are 
fully occupied, provided the occupation is not disagreeable. 
But when events have passed into memory the rule changes ; 
the time limits within which we can recall many events or 
thoughts seem widely separated, and vice versa. But these 
mental time measures are too vague and misleading to an- 
swer practical purposes. Still, they are never wholly aban- 



THE TIME RELATION IN HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY. 77 

cloned. A man without a watch lost in the forest, or work- 
ing in a field on a cloudy day, takes account of just such ex- 
periences. 

2. The next thing is the adoption of some fixed measure 
or measures. These are found in Nature : the day, the Latin 
for which means " shine, 11 the month, or moon, which signi- 
fies " measurer, 11 and the year, which in Latin is a ring or cir- 
cle. Then, we make artificial divisions or multiples of these 
natural measures : the hour, minute, and second, the week, 
the Olympiad, the jubilee, the decade, and the century. 
Artificial changes are also made in the units themselves : 
thus the lunar and the calendar months do not coincide, and 
the solar year and the civil year are not quite of the same 
length. 

Experience only can teach an individual the real mean- 
ing and application of these measures. While the succes- 
sions of sensation and ideas can by no means take the place 
of definite time standards, they are just as essential to un- 
derstanding them as experiences of color and sound are to 
an understanding of the color and sound vocabularies. 
Thus, life alone enables us to form the conception of his- 
tory. 

The process just described is similar to that by which a 
man measures distance with his eye. He learns by observa- 
tion that commonly about so many objects are seen in a 
mile or on an acre of ground ; looking upon an expanse 
stretched out before him he recognizes once, twice, or thrice 
that number of objects within certain limits ; and then, ob- 
serving or assuming that the objects thus presented are 
scattered about as thickly as he is accustomed to see them, 
he concludes that the distance is one, two, or three miles, or 
the surface one, two, or three acres. Or, if he thinks the 
objects now presented are closer or less close together, he 
makes the necessary allowance. To tell a person who has 
always lived within the four walls of a house that one place 
is a hundred miles from another gives him nothing more 
than verbal information ; but if he has ridden across the 



78 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

country on the cars, and has thus formed some empirical dis- 
tance measures, the language will mean something to 
him. 

3. The next step in the evolution of a system of chronol- 
ogy is to fix upon a starting point from which to measure. 
Every child makes the present his first chronological era ; 
he counts backward. For the purposes of history, there are 
two fatal objections to this mode of procedure : one is, that 
the place of beginning is constantly changing ; the other, 
that it violates the order of historical movement by requir- 
ing the mind to go up-stream. Hence we must transport 
ourselves into the past. The Jews count from the creation 
of the world, Christians from the birth of Christ, Moham- 
medans from the flight of the Prophet from Mecca. In 
every such case the starting point or the era is purely arbi- 
trary, and may rest upon a mistaken notion. In fact, Christ 
was born eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, and not eight- 
een hundred and ninety-three, years ago. 

4. Having provided ourselves with a set of standards, or a 
measuring line duly divided and marked, and adopted a base 
line we are now ready to measure and to mark the distances 
of the events that we wish to locate, both from the base and 
from one another. Wrought out in due form such a scheme 
is called a system of chronology, which may be defined as an 
arrangement or exhibit of various events that have occurred 
in history, deemed important, in the order of their succes- 
sion, with the intervals of time from one to another and 
from the era previously agreed upon suitably designated. A 
chronological chart has therefore been aptly compared to a 
geographical map. The era corresponds to the prime merid- 
ian ; the centuries, years, and days to the ordinary meridians. 
The value of the chart and of the map alike depends less 
upon the choice of an era or prime meridian and the length 
of the measures employed than upon the carefulness and 
accuracy with which the details are worked out. If a date 
is lost, then the event for which it stands can no more be 
definitely fixed with reference to other events than we can 



THE TIME RELATION IN HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY. 79 

locate the fabled islands of the Atlantic with reference to 
Europe and America. 

It thus becomes quite clear that a chronological scheme 
is essential to accurate history. Thus, the meaning of the 
phrase, " chronology is one of the two eyes of history, 1 ' be- 
comes manifest. Such a scheme is one of the three machines, 
so to speak, that the student uses to assort and place his facts. 
Entering a mail car attached to a Michigan Central train 
bound westward from Detroit, you see a clerk standing be- 
fore a group of boxes, each one appropriately marked and 
the whole looking much like a cabinet of open drawers, en- 
gaged in " throwing " mail. With astonishing dexterity he 
throws the proper pieces to the boxes marked Ypsilanti, Ann 
Arbor, Jackson, etc. Similarly a chronologist tosses into 
the boxes of his chronological scheme the events, men, ideas, 
institutions, and doctrines that he comes upon in the course 
of his studies. The veteran student has his scheme ready 
made ; the neophyte makes his scheme as he accumulates his 
facts. Perhaps it is needless to say that much time and care 
are consumed in its fabrication, and that the teacher should 
lend the pupil intelligent co-operation. Such is a system 
of scientific chronology. Such a system, more or less defi- 
nitely worked out, every historical student must have, but 
it would be a great mistake to suppose that such a system 
rigidly adhered to or followed is either a necessary or a wise 
expedient. There are other elements to be considered in as- 
sorting and organizing historical facts. 

Chronology proper takes notice of time only : it pays 
no heed to either place or cause and effect. The chronologist 
arranges facts, no matter where they may come from or 
how disconnected they may be, in the strict order of succes- 
sion. His scheme is therefore wholly artificial, wholly ex- 
ternal to the facts themselves. The lines that he draws 
across his chart are no more parts of history than the merid- 
ians and i>arallels drawn upon a map are parts of the 
earth's surface. There are such things as geographical and 
causal relations, such things as the unity and continuity 



80 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

of history determined by these relations, from which it 
follows that, if the method of the chronologist is rigidly ad- 
hered to, the highest form of history possible would be a 
chronicle. 

Here we come to the important question, How should his- 
tory be written and studied ? Historians have followed 
three methods — the external, the internal, and a combina- 
tion of these two. 

The mere annalist sets events down by years, in the order 
of their occurrence. Livy's History of Rome some editor 
arbitrarily divided into decades, or groups of ten books each, 
for the sole reason that the first, twenty-first, and thirty-first 
books marked the beginnings of important periods and are 
opened by short introductions. The Magdeburg Centurists 
and their imitators divided the history of the Church into 
centuries. Even the learned Mosheim followed that method 
in his Ecclesiastical History. The century method is more 
rational than the decade method ; still it often compels a 
total disregard of internal connections, while forcing facts 
that are unrelated into a mechanical union. Moreover, 
besides doing violence to subject-matter, all such methods 
cramp the powers of the writer and of the student. They 
are no more a part of history than a diver's armor is a part 
of the diver. 

Other writers have followed the internal method, fol- 
lowing as a criterion the genetic development of thought 
and events. These writers make use of the period, the age, 
and the epoch in assorting and arranging their facts. The 
relations of these divisions of time are not definitely deter- 
mined. The period is most frequently employed, and it 
alone need be considered in this discussion. 

The great advantage of the period is, that the term does 
not connote a fixed length of time, like year, decade, or 
century. Some periods are long, some short. It is rarely 
possible to tell in years how long a period is ; still it has a 
beginning and an end, and is marked by certain features 
giving it a unity that makes it possible for the mind to grasp 



THE TIME RELATION IN HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY. 81 

it as a whole. These features may be religious, political, or 
military, or a blending of various elements. The Protestant 
Reformation was a political, a national, an intellectual, and 
an economical movement as well as a religious one. Ob- 
viously, therefore, the conception of the period is essential 
to the right interpretation of history. 

The disadvantages of the strict internal method are no 
less obvious than its advantages. It is too subjective, setting 
at naught all relations but those of internal connection. It 
fails to bring facts into relation that lie outside of the chain 
of cause and effect. It runs in special channels, leaving out 
of account parallel but unrelated series of facts. It gives 
us a searching inward look that is deficient in breadth of 
view. What is more, it has no definite means of marking 
time or of measuring historic intervals. In fact, left to it- 
self the internal method is helpless to keep track of its own 
results or to preserve them in any definite form. More than 
this, it is even limited in its account of development. Time 
is of the essence of history ; and there is no escaping the 
questions, " When ? " and " How long ? " 

Happily the two methods do not absolutely exclude each 
other ; each completes the other, and the student must there- 
fore secure the advantages both of the external and the in- 
ternal method. The student of history, in contradistinction 
to the chronologist, does not stand in front of a cabinet of 
boxes each of the same capacity, marked " first," " second," 
and " third " ; he stands rather before a series of posts 
marked 1096, 1453, 1492, 1517, 1607, 1688, 1776, 1861, etc., and 
throws his facts to them. These dates mean the first Cru- 
sade, the fall of Constantinople, the discovery of America, 
the Reformation, Jamestown, the English Revolution, the 
American Revolution, and our Civil War. They stand 
prominent in the periods into which the student has found it 
convenient to divide history. In other words, he associates 
a multitude of facts with leading dates like those that have 
been mentioned. The events so associated are of course 
those that do not require, for common purposes a closer 



82 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

identification. The historian will indeed mark as clearly as 
possible the time when Columbus went to Lisbon, to the 
Gold Coast, and to Spain, and the dates of his second, third 
and fourth voyages, as well as of many other voyages ; but 
the general student, or reader at least, will find it sufficient 
to set up the year 1492, and to group many minor facts 
around it. In this way the great dates of history, and not a 
mere scheme of artificial compartments, control the group- 
ing of events. In this way dates mark periods. In this way 
we satisfy many of the demands of both chronological ex- 
actness and of internal connection. 

To a considerable extent the historical period meets the 
demand of history. Even well-educated men are often un- 
able to do more than to place facts in their proper period, or 
to throw them into their own group ; history could be 
written without a more definite chronology than this, but it 
would be defective. Hence it becomes necessary to mark as 
closely as we can the beginning and the end of periods. 
Still, we must remember that the dates fixed upon for this 
purpose are after all partly arbitrary and artificial. His- 
tory is an evolution ; it is marked by unity and continuity, 
and we can not divide it into periods in the exact manner of 
a surveyor cutting up a field into village lots. We call 1517 
the beginning of the Reformation, for example, but we are 
not unaware that this is giving that year a certain factitious 
importance. 

The observation last made leads to the broader one, that 
it has been a common fault of historians to draw their lines 
of demarcation both too straight and too heavy. Human 
progress is not made by leaps and bounds, but by slow and 
sometimes imperceptible stages ; and the great periods of 
history are separated from one another by lines sometimes 
almost imperceptible, and always wavy and shaded. Rome 
did not fall in a day any more than it was built in a day. 
Accordingly, as a matter of fact the firmest lines that we 
are able to draw are often largely a matter of mental con- 
venience. What M. Compayre says of one class of institu- 



THE TIME RELATION IX HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY. 83 

tions is true of a vast number of others : u It is necessary, in 
the first place, to discard the prejudice that the first univer- 
sities of the Middle Ages were horn suddenly, in a day, at 
a precise moment, whose date it would be possible to fix 
exactly." This truth the evolutionists have taught us so 
thoroughly that some historical writers now seem disposed 
to go too far in disregarding historical periods. 

We Americans sometimes divide our own history into 
three grand divisions, viz. : 

The Colonial Period, 1607-1775, marked by our depend- 
ence upon England. 

The Revolutionary Period, 1775-1789, marked by the 
struggle for independence and the various attempts to or- 
ganize our political system. 

The Constitutional Period, extending from 1789 to the 
present day. 

It must not be supposed that such divisions as these are 
like those of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. 
A given historic field may be divided, and be well divided, 
in quite different ways. Much depends upon the judgment 
of the author or teacher, and upon his immediate purpose. 
Every one of the periods just given may, for certain pur- 
poses, be broken up with advantage. The first one may be 
divided into the period of discovery, the period of coloniza- 
tion, and the period of colonial life. The second one may 
be divided into the continental and the confederate periods, 
March 1, 1781, forming the point of division. The third one 
may be divided into the period of foreign relations extend- 
ing to 1820, the period of economic questions to 1845, and 
the period of the slavery controversy to 1869. Or the pe- 
riods may be divided with reference to particular facts or 
questions, as the third one with reference to the ascendency 
of political parties. 

To recognize the features that characterize the different 
periods, and so to distinguish them, calls for much knowl- 
edge and judgment. 

Sometimes the century and period have a general corre- 



84 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

spondence. The French Eevolution is said, in a general way, 
to mark the close of the last century. Again, a man is de- 
scribed as belonging, by his mental character, to the six- 
teenth century or to the eighteenth. But, apart from such 
correspondences, the century is an exceedingly useful scale 
for the arrangement and retention of historical facts. It is 
often sufficient for practical purposes to refer an event to its 
century : as the first Crusade to the close of the eleventh, 
the discovery of America to the close of the fifteenth, the 
planting of the first English colonies in America to the be- 
ginning of the seventeenth. Besides, some facts, as a war or 
revolution occupying considerable time, can not be referred 
to a particular year. 

We also classify historical matter with reference to dy- 
nasties, reigns, and administrations. The divisions of time 
that are thus named are sometimes natural and sometimes 
artificial divisions of history. Some of them are the mere 
incidents of succession, but others stand for ideas, policies, 
and great accomplished facts. The Norman dynasty marks 
the last subjugation of England. We speak of the Eliza- 
bethan and the Victorian Ages of English literature. The 
accession of William III to the throne of England had 
much significance. In the United States the inaugura- 
tion of Presidents has sometimes marked new measures, 
as those of Jefferson, 1801 ; Jackson, 1829 ; and Lincoln, 
1861. 

But even when it is not thus marked off, as commonly it 
is not, the administration serves a useful purpose. The 
leading facts occurring in it can be associated with the Presi- 
dent, he with them. The twenty administrations, count- 
ing the double administrations as units, may be likened to a 
cabinet of twenty boxes, or to a bookcase containing an 
equal number of shelves on which books may be so placed 
that they can be readily found when wanted. For many of 
the facts that he requires, the administration is as small a 
division of time as one needs. The common man is content 
to know that President Jackson vetoed the Bank Bill, that 



THE TIME RELATION IN HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY. 85 

President Jefferson was the father of the embargo, that the 
Oregon question was settled in the time of Polk, and the 
Northeastern boundary in that of Tyler. Hence, it is one 
of the duties of the teacher of the elementary history of the 
United States to teach the pupilhis "administrations" thor- 
oughly. 

The methods already described will not answer the defi- 
nite purposes of instruction in history. The teacher must 
face the questions : How many, and what dates ? and, How 
to teach them ? 

The year will commonly suffice, but not always : 1492 is 
hardly definite enough for the discovery of America, or 1776 
for the Declaration of Independence. The date of John 
Cabot's landfall, June 24, 1497, is important by reason of 
its relations to the pretended landfall of Vespucius, June 6, 
1497, and the genuine one of Columbus, October 4, 1498. 
For the rest, years alone will answer for all the voyages of 
American discovery that need be taught : Ponce de Leon's 
discovery of Florida, 1512 ; De Soto's expedition, 1539 ; Ver- 
razzano's exploration of the coast, 1524 ; Cartier's voyages to 
the St. Lawrence region, 1534, 1535, 1540 ; Hudson's visit to 
the Hudson and the Delaware, 1609, etc. 

Since the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock 
fixes Forefathers' Day, the date should be exactly given, De- 
cember 22, 1620. But years will do for all the other first 
settlements. Indeed, the pupil may well congratulate him- 
self if, later in life, he can recall the years of a few of the 
more prominent ones : Jamestown, 1607 ; New York, 1613 ; 
Boston, 1630 ; Hartford, 1634 ; Providence, 1635 ; Philadel- 
phia, 1682. 

The periods of conflict between the English and the 
French in North America should be carefully marked off, 
as follows : 

Charles First's War, 1627-1630, in which the English 
seized Port Royal and Quebec, but only to yield them up 
again on the conclusion of peace. 

King William's War, 1689-1697, marked by several In- 



86 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

dian forays against the English, settlements, and by two un- 
successful attempts to reduce Canada. 

Queen Anne's War, 1702-1713, in which the English again 
captured Port Royal (and retained it thenceforth), and in 
which they again put forth fruitless efforts to reduce Canada. 

King George's War, 1744-1748, famous for the capture of 
Louisburg and the island of Cape Breton, which, however, 
were given up to Prance at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 

The French and Indian War, 1754-1763, at the close of 
which Prance transferred to England her possessions on the 
continent north of the English colonies and east of the 
Mississippi, except the small portion of Louisiana east of the 
river that went to Spain. 

In dealing with the military operations and political 
events falling within these limits, it would be commonly 
quite sufficient to assign them to their respective periods. 
A few, however, should be definitely taught : as the seizure 
of the Porks of the Ohio by the French, 1754 ; the fall of 
Quebec, 1759 ; and the Treaty of Paris, 1763. 

In dealing with the War of Independence, the teacher 
will be somewhat more definite. But even here months 
and days will, as a rule, either uselessly encumber the mem- 
ory or be speedily forgotten. April 19, 1775, marking the 
beginning of the war, and October 10, 1781, marking the 
surrender of Yorktown, are the most important. 

In dealing with military operations that are parts of cam- 
paigns, and particularly when the stage is crowded, it is gen- 
erally best to refer them to these larger movements. With 
our Civil War, for example, the teacher should make out 
for his own guidance, or adopt, a scheme of all such opera- 
tions as may properly be called campaigns, not omitting their 
time limits and interior relations. It will suffice here to 
remark, in addition, that a few definite dates must content 
the pupil and the teacher alike. 

Carlyle remarks upon the discrepancy existing between 
our manner of observing things and their manner of oc- 
curring : 



THE TIME RELATION IN HISTOEY: CHRONOLOGY. 87 

The most gifted man can observe, still more record, only the 
series of his own impressions ; his observation, therefore, to say noth- 
ing of its other imperfections, mnst be successive* while the things 
done were often simultaneous ; the things done were not a series, 
but a group. It is not in acted as it is in written history : actual 
events are no wise so simply related to each other as parent and off- 
spring are ; every single event is the offspring not of one but of all 
other events prior or contemporaneous, and will in its turn combine 
with all others to give birth to new ; it is an ever-living, ever- work- 
ing chaos of being, wherein shape after shape bodies itself forth 
from innumerable events. . . . All narrative is, by its nature, of 
only one dimension; only travels forward toward one or toward 
successive points ; narrative is linear, action is solid. 

The difficulty is a real one ; it can be overcome but par- 
tially, and that only as the result of discipline. Even if he 
occupies the most eligible place on the whole field, a com- 
manding general can not see all the turns and stages of a 
battle, although they may lie within the scope of his eye- 
sight ; he ranges back and forth, looks first to one part of the 
field and then to another, sees some things done and some 
that have been done, uses his ears as well as his eyes, and by 
the employment of all his faculties — observation, inference, 
memory, and imagination — constructs a measurably com- 
plete view of the battle as a whole. Not unlike this is the 
position of a student of history who seeks to comprehend the 
whole action that is taking place on any large historic field. 
He can see but one thing at a time ; his mind moves in column 
and not in line, and it is only by following a given series 
a certain distance, and by frequently going back to bring up 
the parallel series, and by much exercise of his co-ordinating 
faculties, that he finally comes to see the action, as it were, in 
group. A master of historical composition even can not 
drive two, and much less three or four, series of events 
abreast ; and in nothing does he use his skill to better pur- 
pose than in choosing halting places for the column that he 
had pushed on in the van, while he brings up the columns 
that have fallen into the rear. Thus again we reach a reason 
8 



88 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

why the child's first lessons in history must be stories chosen 
with large reference to simplicity of action. 

The questions, How many and what dates shall I teach ? 
have continually receded before us. The fact is, no person 
can definitely answer this question for another, or even for 
himself, until he is in the presence of his class. The teacher 
who demands definite answers, or feels the need of them, 
thereby confesses his unfitness to teach the subject. All 
that I can say, in addition to what I have said, is to offer 
a few practical remarks. 

1. Too many dates are sometimes taught, and bad judg- 
ment is often shown in their selection. Some teachers seem 
to think that pounding dates into a child's mind is the main 
thing to be done. In fact, the over-emphasizing of chronol- 
ogy has hitherto been one of the serious defects of history 
teaching. Accordingly, it can not be too plainly stated that 
a dictionary of dates is not a history. If the chronologist 
were a historian, no form of literary composition would be 
easier, whereas it is a high literary art. Clio sits by right 
in the circle of the Muses. " To be a really great historian," 
Lord Macaulay remarks, u is perhaps the rarest of intellect- 
ual distinctions." 

Dates are not the skeleton of history, as is sometimes 
said ; they are not even its articulations. The American 
Eevolution turns on the battle of Lexington, somewhat as 
the human arm " turns " on the ball-and-socket joint of the 
shoulder ; the date, April 19, 1775, merely marks the time of 
the transaction, unless, indeed, it is conceived of as the trans- 
action itself. 

2. The opposite mistake is sometimes made. The time 
when an event occurs is dismissed with the contemptuous 
remark, "A mere date." Now, while facts are the staple of 
history, they do not become history until they are properly 
worked up or organized. It has already been insisted that 
the teacher must constantly regard those relations that con- 
trol such organization — time, place, and causation. Fur- 
thermore, in the early stage of instruction time should be 



THE TIME RELATION IN HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY. 89 

more emphasized than the other two principles, or, at all 
events, than the third one. It is true that time relations, as 
antecedent and consequent, may be taught irrespective of 
dates ; still, it will be found that, unless a sufficient number 
of dates are fixed in the mind to keep facts in their places, 
they will straggle about in the most vagrant fashion. & is 
more important to remember this fact, because the doctrine 
of evolution, which has so much modified methods of study- 
ing history, tends to fix attention on the development as a 
whole, or on the stages into which it is divisible. To a de- 
gree this method meets the ends of history, but by no means 
wholly so. The time when an event occurs is sometimes as 
important as the event itself ; and in general there can be 
no useful comparison of historical facts without reference to 
dates or measurably definite periods of time. It is a fault 
for a writer to sprinkle his pages too thickly with B. c.'s 
and a. D. 's ; but to leave the reader in doubt as to the time 
relations of facts, or to compel him to infer them from the 
drift of the narrative because the dates are too sparse, is quite 
as serious a mistake. 

It does not follow that a pupil should not learn a date 
because he does not comprehend its full historical signifi- 
cance or have definite ideas of the distance of the event from 
the base line or from some other event. Such ability as this 
is acquired but slowly. The prodigious significance of the 
great dates of history continually grows upon the minds of 
veteran scholars. 

3. Much depends upon the particular subject with which 
the teacher is dealing. As in geography we are content 
with general ideas of distant countries, and especially of 
large countries, while we require much more definite knowl- 
edge in dealing with the near, and especially our own coun- 
try ; so in history we do not expect, save in special work, 
the detail in dealing with Grecian or Roman history that 
we require in English history, and much less in the history 
of the United States. The purpose of the writer or teacher 
also has a direct bearing upon the question, whether he is 



90 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

dealing with the subject in an elementary or a thorough 
manner. 

4. The important dates are the ones to teach— those that 
stand to the whole historic movement in a relation similar 
to that of the superior articulations to the human body. 
These important dates should be fixed in the mind exactly 
or approximately as firmly as possible, and other dates be 
arranged with reference to them as antecedent or conse- 
quent. It is not so important to know the day on which 
the second Continental Congress convened or adjourned as 
it is to know the day that it assigned to the United States a 
separate position among the nations of the world. 

5. the age of pupils, their advancement in study and 
particularly in history, and the time that is to be given to 
the subject, are all to be considered. Here, however, the cri- 
teria already laid down for the selection of historical facts 
in general apply in full force. 

Nothing but a knowledge of the subject taught, and of 
the conditions attending the pupils or the class, and good 
judgment, will enable the teacher to decide how many and 
what dates to teach. The attempt has been made to present 
the principal considerations that bear on the two questions, 
and to illustrate some methods of procedure. The compe- 
tent teacher can desire nothing more. The Germans, or 
some of them, do indeed go further. In the Berlin course of 
study sixty -three dates are required to be taught in the sec- 
ond class of the elementary schools, and fifty-three in the 
first class ; one hundred and sixteen in all, or about six new 
dates a month. 

6. Still another suggestion may prove useful. The his- 
tory of one country may serve as a general chronological 
guide for the history of others. Thus, after she assumed a 
leading position in the Mediterranean, Rome should be made 
the point of observation from which to survey the history 
of that whole basin. " What was going on in Carthage at 
the time when Pyrrhus invaded Italy ? " " in Greece in the 
days of the Second Punic War ? " " in the East in the days 



THE TIME RELATION IN HISTORY: CHRONOLOGY. 91 

of Pompey or Julius Caesar ? " For the general American 
student, England should be the standard for Europe, at least 
after the Norman Conquest. *' Who ruled in France in the 
time of Richard the Lion-hearted ? " " What was the state 
of Prussia in the early part of the reign of George III ? " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PLACE RELATION : GEOGRAPHY. 

References. — See Chapter X. 

Since history is action or movement, it involves the idea 
of place as well as of time. An action or event, as the very 
phrase suggests, must take place somewhere as well as some- 
time. In purely subjective history neither element is prom- 
inent, and both may be practically left out of the account. 
Dealing with a man's thought or feeiing merely, we do not 
pay much attention to the time when or to the place where 
he carried it on. But when thought becomes will and will 
expresses itself in action — that is, the very moment that his- 
tory becomes objective — the two elements distinctly appear. 
Hence geography is the second of the two eyes of history. 

The historical bearings or relations of geography may be 
considered under two aspects, the static and the dynamic. 
First, geography furnishes history its sphere or theater of 
action. This is a purely spatial relation. Thus considered, 
it has nothing to do with producing or modifying the ac- 
tion ; it merely provides the ground where historic forces 
act and bring about their results. But, secondly, geography 
is a historical cause of great potency and value. Tempera- 
ture, humidity, and food directly affect a man's physical and 
mental character, and so his life. Heat and cold, wet and 
dry, a diet of rice and a diet of train oil, are immediate his- 
torical factors. Still further, these agents also affect him 
through bis occupations, bis pastimes, his activities, and his 
wants still more powerfully, and so are mediate historical 
factors of great value. The historian must take account of 



THE PLACE RELATION: GEOGRAPHY. 93 

food supply, the occupations of men, industries, and com- 
merce, all closely related to natural conditions. He must 
account for the location, the growth, and the character of 
cities, and the construction of lines of transportation and 
travel. What powerful factors in American history are In- 
dian corn, the cotton belt, the fisheries, the forests and coal 
fields, the oil regions, and the gold and silver mines ! Mili- 
tary operations, it is almost unnecessary to remark, are large- 
ly governed by physical conditions. Gettysburg gave the 
National and Confederate armies a field of battle ; by its re- 
lations and peculiar conformation this field exerted a great 
influence upon the battle itself. The shores of Massachusetts 
Bay gave the Puritans an opportunity to do something ; 
they also determined to a degree what they did and what 
they could do. These two aspects of geography are never 
practically separated ; neither one is ever wanting in real 
history ; but the causal element, as we shall see hereafter, is 
a variable quantity. 

Since the two aspects are always practicaUy united, some 
might think it better to consider them together in such a 
discussion as the present one. However, there are certain 
advantages that attend handling them separately. Accord- 
ingly, I shall treat the purely place relation in the present 
chapter, leaving physical environment to be considered 
more fully hereafter. 

Life gives to matter its highest value, and wherever uni- 
versal death prevails the interest of the mind can not be per- 
manently maintained. If the moon be what we are assured 
it is, even an astronomer, could he visit it, would w 7 ander 
over its surface much as we walk over a bed of cinders or a 
field of lava. The earth is most interesting when consid- 
ered in relation to its human uses. Geography provides 
man his sphere of life, and then finds its highest interest, 
not in its deserts or crags, its glaciers or canons, but in its 
human elements. Political geography is nothing but a 
form of applied history. Then the two elements together 
make up the interest of travel. To assign to the physical 



94 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

elements and historical elements of a country or locality 
their relative degrees of value would be impossible, espe- 
cially as the ratio would not be the same with all persons ; 
similarly we can not nicely separate between current and 
historical life ; but there is little doubt that the majority of 
men attribute more or less interest to Nature that properly 
belongs to humanity, and also some interest to contempo- 
rary life that belongs to past time. Men toil and suffer to 
visit countries and places having little living interest. The 
Holy Places attract pilgrims because they have been made 
holy by devoted and self-denying lives. Moses is greater 
than Mount Sinai, Abraham than Palestine, Jesus than the 
Lake of Galilee. It is very true that back of the event lie 
causes, thoughts, feelings, and activities ; but there is a cer- 
tain tendency to look for them, and also the event itself, in 
the locality. 

There are still other reasons for emphasizing geography 
in connection with history. Historical events that are not 
located by the pupil are neither understood nor remem- 
bered. History that is read without due attention to its 
theater is too much like an imaginary account of similar 
transactions in the moon. Hence, the teacher must bring 
the pupil's history down out of the clouds and rest it on the 
ground and in the water. Thomas Carlyle once wrote to 
one of his nephews : 

As to subjects for reading, I recommend in general all kinds 
of books that will give you real information about men, their works 
and ways, past and present. History is evidently the grand sub- 
ject a student will take to. Never read any such book without a 
map beside you; endeavor to seek out every place the author 
names, and get a clear idea of the ground you are on ; without this 
you can never understand him, much less remember him. Mark 
the dates of the chief events and epochs ; write them ; get them 
fixed into your memory — chronology and geography are the two 
lamps of history. 

Careful study of a good map is the next best thing to 
visiting a historical locality in person. To a certain ex- 



THE PLACE RELATION: GEOGRAPHY. 95 

tent geography and history are but one study ; and the 
effort now made in schools to study them in close connec- 
tion is worthy of all praise. Thus the memory is WhoHy 
dependent upon the associating activities of the mind. 
Without them nothing could be retained and nothing could 
be learned. Besides, contiguity of space is one of the most 
powerful of these activities. In view of these facts we 
need not enlarge upon the importance of the place element 
in history. 

The student of history might adopt a method similar to 
that of the chronologist: he might use the geographical 
divisions of a country or state as a cabinet of boxes for 
the distribution of his facts. If the theater under considera- 
tion is small, something quite like this must be done ; but 
generaUy a less artificial method is to be preferred. 

When an important fact belongs to a notable place, the 
association is effected without difficulty. The Declaration 
of Independence and the Federal Convention of 1787 easily 
attach themselves to Philadelphia. If the event is less im- 
portant or the place is less notable, the association is not 
so easy. In fact, properly to connect events and places is 
by no means the least part of the student's task. However, 
to associate each fact that should be remembered with its 
own definite locality is much like associating it with its own 
definite year, the folly of which was commented upon in 
the last chapter. We may borrow a useful hint from that 
discussion : we may throw our facts to districts of country, 
to cities or towns, or to marked natural features, much as 
we before threw them to periods of time. 

For example, the subject of study is the Mexican War. 
Before taking this up as a series of military operations, it 
should be viewed in its causes and general conditions. The 
following factors should be mentioned : the geographical 
relations of Mexico and the United States previous to the 
war — their long and irregular boundary, extending from 
the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean ; the disputed strip of 
territory lying between the river Nueces and the Rio Grande, 



96 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOEY. 

a dispute that grew out of the Texas annexation ; the pos- 
session by Mexico of the vast region now comprising Cali- 
fornia, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico, and parts 
of Colorado and Wyoming, none of it thickly populated 
and most of it waste and uncultivated, none of it known to 
contain metals, but much of it fertile and productive ; the 
California coast and San Francisco Bay — the eagerness of the 
American statesmen who were then in the ascendant, and of 
a large share of the people, particularly at the South, to gain 
a Southwestern accession of territory and to widen the front 
of the republic opening upon the western ocean, as well as 
their determination to maintain the national claim to the 
left bank of the Rio Grande. All these factors should be 
duly emphasized, and particularly the enlarging and aggress- 
ive habit of the American people. " Indemnity for the past 
and security for the future " was a favorite battle-cry from 
the beginning of the struggle. These factors being duly 
recognized, it will be readily seen that the military events 
fall into four main series : 

I. The Rio Grande Frontier. — In the spring of 1846 Gen- 
eral Taylor fought and won the battles of Palo Alto and 
Resaca de la Palma, and drove the Mexicans from the east 
side of the river. Later he invaded Mexico, winning im- 
portant victories at Monterey and Buena Vista. The pupil 
should locate all these actions and mark their relations; but 
if he can permanently associate them with the Rio Grande, 
placing them on their appropriate sides of the river, nothing 
more need be desired. 

II. California. — At the beginning of the war there was 
an American squadron on the Pacific coast, and also an 
armed exploring expedition. In the course of the summer 
of 1846 this squadron, successively commanded by Commo- 
dores Sloat and Stockton, and the explorers under Colonel 
Fremont, seized the principal towns of Upper California 
and reduced the whole province under American control. 
In general it will be sufficient to assign the several small 
engagements that took place simply to California. 



THE PLACE RELATION: GEOGRAPHY. 97 

III. Neiv Mexico. — The same summer General S. W. 
Kearney marched from the Missouri River across the plains 
by the old Santa Fe trail, and subjugated all New Mexico 
without fighting a battle. Kearney then departed for Cali- 
fornia, but Colonel Doniphan, who was left in command, 
marched south into Mexico, capturing the city of Chihuahua 
and the country adjacent. He did not, however, accom- 
plish his purpose of effecting a junction with General Tay- 
lor at Monterey. 

These successes placed the Americans in possession of 
the territory that they coveted and that they were deter- 
mined to hold. From this time on the war was waged on 
their part to compel the Mexicans to consent to peace on 
that condition. In fact, the victories of Monterey and 
Buena Vista were a part of this later policy. Our Govern- 
ment was determined that the left bank of the Rio Grande 
and San Francisco Bay should never return to their old 
owners. 

IV. General Scotfs Campaign against the City of Mex- 
ico. — In this campaign Vera Cruz was the first objective 
point, because it was the key to the most direct road lead- 
ing from the Gulf of Mexico to the Mexican capital. This 
city, together with the fortress of San Juan de Ulloa, fell 
before a combined naval and military attack in March, 1847, 
and soon after the advance upon the capital began. Cerro 
Gordo was won in April, and the campaign culminated in 
the Valley of Mexico in August and September. As before, 
the student should follow the army map in hand ; but it 
will suffice for him permanently to associate Cerro Gordo 
with Vera Cruz, and all the operations in the Valley with 
the Capital City. 

In many cases all practical purposes will be answered by 
associating events with some city or town, or feature of 
country, even although considerable distance intervene. 
Further on a chapter will be given to the Revolutionary 
War ; but here it may be pointed out that all the important 
events of that struggle may be referred to a few centers, to 



98 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

be grouped and associated. These centers, or, at all events, 
the most important of them, are Boston, Long- Island Sound, 
Lake Champlain, Montreal, Quebec, Saratoga, New York, 
Philadelphia, Charleston, Savannah, and the waters of Vir- 
ginia. Or if it be thought that this is giving too much lati- 
tude, then New Jersey and North and South Carolina may 
be added. West of the mountains, East Tennessee and the 
Illinois and Wabash country should not be overlooked. 
With Boston may be associated Lexington and Concord, 
the beleaguer of the city, Bunker Hill, the assumption of 
command by Washington, the fortification of Dorchester 
Heights, and the evacuation of the city. With Philadelphia 
may be associated the early Congresses, the Declaration of 
Independence, Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, the occu- 
pation of the city by General Howe, Germantown, Valley 
Forge, and the evacuation of the city by the British. Such 
groupings can be worked out with more or less detail as cir- 
cumstances may determine, and may be rendered the more 
effective by writing them out upon the blackboard and hav- 
ing them copied into notebooks. 

That geographical facts are much better understood, and 
much more readily retained by the mind, when grouped and 
clothed with a human interest — that the same is true of his- 
torical facts when grouped and rested on their geographical 
supports — are commonplaces. Full play for the invention 
of the teacher is given in the effort to group and associate 
the facts. 

The system of waters to which we are admitted by the 
strait between Cape Charles and Cape Henry is one of the 
most interesting, both geographically and historically, in 
our whole country. These waters have been the theater of 
important and interesting events in the three great epochs 
of our history: Discovery and Colonization, the Revolution, 
and the Civil War. One or two places and three or four 
characters become at once centers around which all the his- 
torical facts that need be taught can be grouped. First, we 



THE PLACE RELATION: GEOGRAPHY. 99 

have Jamestown, Captain John Smith, Powhatan, and Po- 
cahontas; secondly, Yorktown, Washington, Rochambeau, 
and Cornwallis; thirdly, Washington and Richmond, Lin- 
coln, Grant, Davis, and Lee. 

The history of Lakes George and Champlain and the 
river Richelieu presents three or four interesting groups of 
facts. Champlain, the Father of Canada, appeared on the 
shore of the lake bearing his name, surrounded by the wild- 
ness of Nature, in the year 1609. In the middle of the 
last century these waters and their shores were a main thea- 
ter of the French and Indian War. There rise up before us 
Fort William Henry, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and the 
wilderness fortresses of less degree ; the battlefields of Lake 
George, William Henry, and Ticonderoga; the figures of 
Montcalm, Abercrombie, Lord Howe, and Amherst. Twenty 
years later came the army sent from Canada to separate the 
New England States from the other States. Now we catch a 
view of the fields of Bennington, Stillwater, and Saratoga ; of 
Burgoyne and Gates, Schuyler, Stark, and Arnold. Thirty- 
seven years later, in the last year of the War of 1812, came 
Provost and Downie, attempting, like Burgoyne, to split the 
Union, and, like him, failing in their purpose. 

Then, the Delaware will always be associated with great 
events : as Penn's treaty with the Indians, the Continental 
Congress, the British occupation, and the Federal Conven- 
tion ; and with great characters, as Penn, Dr. Franklin, and 
Washington. 

Groupings of historical figures and scenes around geo- 
graphical centers make these centers instinct with life and 
motion, while the centers themselves, binding the figures 
and scenes together, give them a new permanence and solid- 
ity. The teacher will find it an excellent exercise to group 
a series of essays around one of these centers — excellent for 
the purposes of language as well as of geography and his- 
tory. Suppose we take for illustration the Champlain Val- 
ley. One essay will do for Champlain and the discovery 
of the lake; a dozen can be assigned to the men and the 



100 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

events of the French and Indian War ; the same number to 
the Eevolution. The whole can be called "Lake Cham- 
plain in History." Of course, not many centers of historical 
activity can be treated in so thorough a way ; some can be ; 
while the pupil will carry the method and the habit of 
mind thus created to other facts and to other subjects. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CAUSE AND EFFECT EST HISTORY. 

References. — Flint: The Philosophy of History in France and 
Germany (the Introduction contains a good general account of the 
development of the idea) ; Bunsen : Outlines of the Philosophy of 
History (compendious General Introduction) ; Montesquieu : The 
Spirit of Laws; Buckle: The History of Civilization in England 
(Vol. I., Chap. I.) ; Draper : The History of the Intellectual Develop- 
ment of Europe, I. ; Guizot : History of Civilization ; Lecky : The 
Political Value of History ; Froude : Short Studies of Great Sub- 
jects (I., Is History a Science'? II., Scientific Method applied to 
History), The Educational Review, V., (Inaugural Lecture as Regius 
Professor of Modern History at Oxford) ; Goldwin Smith : Lectures 
on the Study of History (I., An Inaugural Lecture, II., III., On the 
Study of History, IV., On Some Proposed Consequences of the Doc- 
trine of Historical Progress, V., The Moral Freedom of Man) ; La- 
visse: General View of the Political History of Europe; Dabney: 
Papers of the American Historical Association, V., No. III. (Is His- 
tory a Science?) Harris: id., V., No. III. (The Philosophical As- 
pect of History). 

The Greek thinkers made two kinds of knowledge, em- 
pirical and philosophical — knowledge of phenomena and 
knowledge of causes. They also called these two forms of 
knowledge the knowledge that and the knowledge ivhy. 
Perhaps it is needless to say that the second is much the 
higher kind of knowledge ; we do not fully know a thing 
until we can explain it or account for it. Furthermore, the 
mind refuses to be satisfied with mere facts ; it asks Why ? 
and Wherefore ? as well as What ? and does not rest until it 
has discovered the reason and the law of things. 



102 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Savages, while differing from civilized men in the meth- 
ods that they use and in the results that they reach, still 
deal with causes. They think themselves surrounded by 
occult influences and mysterious powers. 

In the midst of Nature [it has been said] the Indian knew noth- 
ing of her laws. His perpetual reference of her phenomena to oc- 
cult agencies forestalled inquiry and precluded inductive reasoning. 
If the wind blew with violence, it was because the water-lizard, 
which makes the wind, had crawled out of his pool ; rf the lightning 
was sharp and frequent, it was because the young of the thunder- 
bird were restless in their nest ; if a blight fell upon the corn, it was 
because the Corn Spirit was angry ; and if the beavers were shy and 
difficult to catch, it was because they had taken offense at seeing the 
bones of one of their race thrown to a dog.* 

At the opposite pole of thought are the conceptions of 
unity, law, and order which constitute the core of modern 
science and philosophy. 

The advance from the stage of savage thought to the 
stage of scientific thought, as respects the physical world, 
and still more as respects the moral world, cost man a pro- 
digious effort ; in fact, the conceptions of law, order,- and 
unity are not yet as firmly fixed in the second as they are in 
the first. Spiritual phenomena are more elusive and less 
easy to grasp ; while we are here called upon to deal with 
one of the hardest questions of philosophy, viz., the adjust- 
ment of man's free will to universal causation, a question 
that happily falls outside the limits of the present discus- 
sion. 

The notions of historical uniformity and progress were 
but feebly and vaguely discerned in antiquity. In his Gen- 
eral History Polybius rose to the conception of the univer- 
sal, as his title shows. The problem that he set for him- 
self to solve was " how, in the short space of fifty-three years, 
all the known parts of the earth were reduced beneath the 

* Parkman: The Jesuits in North America, lxxxviii. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT IN HISTORY. 103 

power of a single state. . . . The most useful part of his- 
tory," he wrote, " is the knowledge of what passed before 
and after every great event, and especially of the causes that 
produced it. . . . It is not possible to obtain an entire view 
and knowledge of the whole of things from particular his- 
tory. " Christianity was based upon the ideas of the spiritual 
unity of the whole race and of a providential plan, and so 
prepared the way for juster views of the scope of history. 
The Middle Ages, so far from advancing the philosophy of 
history, rather introduced new and hard elements into the 
main problem. Froissart, the author of the pictured page 
of chivalry, caught a glimmer of the larger bearings of 
things. " If I were merely to say such and such things hap- 
pened at such and such times," he wrote, " without entering 
fully into the matter, which was grandly horrible and dis- 
astrous, this would be a chronicle, but no history." Pascal, 
in the seventeenth century, worked out his celebrated anal- 
ogy of the race to the individual : 

The whole succession of human beings throughout the whole 
course of ages must be regarded as a single individual man, continu- 
ally living and continually learning ; and that shows how unwar- 
ranted is the deference we yield to the philosophers of antiquity ; for, 
as old age is that which is most distant from infancy, it must be 
manifest to all that old age in the universal man should not be 
sought in the times near his birth, but in the times most distant 
from it. Those whom we call the ancients are really those who lived 
in the youth of the world and the true infancy of man ; and as we 
have added the experience of the ages between us and them to what 
they knew, it is only in ourselves that is to be found that antiquity 
which we venerate in others. 

At the middle of the last century Montesquieu wrote his 
epoch-making book The Spirit of Laws, in which he strongly 
set forth the doctrine of human progress through the opera- 
tion of general causes. His philosophy of history has 
been summed up by a competent hand in the statement 
that " the course of history is, on the whole, determined by 
general causes, by widespread and persistent tendencies, by 
9 



104: HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

broad and deep undercurrents, and only influenced in a 
feeble, secondary, and subordinate degree by single events, 
by definite arguments, by particular enactments, by any- 
thing incidental, isolated, or individual."* Turgot, philoso- 
pher and statesman, was the author of the saying so often 
quoted in connection with the American Revolution, ''Colo- 
nies are like fruits, which cling to the tree only until they 
ripen. " However, Herder, who wrote near the close of the 
last century, is commonly accounted the real founder of the 
philosophy of history. f 

By short steps and slow, philosophical ideas have been 
introduced into the field of historical research. Educated 
men now accept the fact of a grand moral order ; or, in 
other words, they recognize the sway of law over the 
thoughts, feelings, and actions of men, and so over history. 
Tennyson expresses the optimistic phase of this view in the 
familiar lines : 

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the 
suns. 

There is, indeed, a serious dispute over the question how 

* Flint : The Philosophy of History, London, 1874, p. 105. I am indehted 
to this writer for several references and quotations. 

t " "Whenever we speak of society as an organism, whenever we con- 
ceive of languages, customs, laws, institutions, arts, literatures, and religions 
as organic growths, whenever we regard the whole life of man — intellect- 
ual, moral, and physical — as a gradual development, we are adopting a 
mode of thought of which our race had no inkling before the last third of 
the eighteenth century, and which was first proclaimed in the immortal 
Fragments of the youthful Herder. ' This, to be sure, is a madman or a 
genius ! ' exclaimed Wieland. ' He is at any rate the only one for whom it 
is worth my while to publish my ideas,' said Lessing. Now the message 
with which this youthful prodigy electrified his contemporaries is the Ger- 
man contribution to human thought, and animating principle of its move- 
ments from that day to this. It consists in the substitution of fieri for 
facere — of spontaneous evolution for intentional institution — as leading 
conception in the study and interpretation of human society and human 
civilization." — Dr. J. G. Schurman. 



CAUSE AND EFFECT IN HISTORY. 105 

far scientific ideas can be extended in history. Some writers 
regard historical facts as so fixed and certain, and the laws 
of historical development so definite, as to justify them in 
calling history a science ; others insist that this is going too 
far, some even denying that there is such a thing as the phi- 
losophy of history. To a considerable extent this con- 
troversy is about words and names, and not about facts ; at 
least, the writers who deny that there is a science or even a 
philosophy of history, as well as those who afBrm the reality 
of one or the other, hold stoutly to historical causation. 
Even Mr. Froude, who regards history merely as a drama, 
admits that it does teach that right and v/rong are true dis- 
tinctions. 

It is in the doctrine of causation that we find the value of 
history as a guide and a discipline. Rightly led, the student 
does not struggle with a mass of disconnected and meaning- 
less facts, but pursues his work under the guiding principles 
of unity and order. The conduct is shaped and the intellect 
disciplined by grasping the fact that like events follow like 
causes. The pupil learns the law that whatever a man or a 
nation sows, that must be reaped, which is the very begin- 
ning of historical wisdom. He sees the consequences of free- 
dom, of slavery, of war, of tyranny and oppression, of na- 
tional prodigality and wastefulness. He learns that there is 
no universally best form of government, but that the form 
which is best in a given case depends upon the history and 
the genius of the people, and that that is best relatively 
which best expresses the national life. He does not learn to 
accept the lines — 

For forms of government let fools contest ; 
Whate'er is best administered is best ; 

or the lines — 

How small, of all that human hearts endure, 
That part which kings or laws can cause or cure ; 

but he does learn that the springs of human well-being, both 



106 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

individual and national, lie deep in the character, history, 
and environment of men. He learns that political institu- 
tions are the results of general causes, and that they grow, 
and are not merely made. He learns that a republican gov- 
ernment like our own is closely dependent upon a high 
stage of intelligence and virtue. He sees that a nation's 
civilization is characterized by a certain unity ; that educa- 
tion, morals, politics, and social life are not distinct and 
separate phenomena, but are closely related. More than 
this, he discovers that nations are dependent upon one an- 
other ; that no one country has totally separate interests, 
but that the good of one and the good of all are more or less 
closely bound up together. 

He learns the facts so well stated by Mr. Lecky relative 
to the great permanent forces that are steadily bearing 
nations onward to improvement or decay : 

The strongest of these forces are the moral ones. Mistakes in 
statesmanship, military triumphs or disasters, no doubt affect 
materially the prosperity of nations, but their permanent political 
well-being is essentially the outcome of their moral state. Its foun- 
dation is laid in pure domestic life, in commercial integrity, in a 
high standard of moral worth and of public spirit, in simple habits, 
in courage, uprightness, and self-sacrifice, in a certain soundness 
and moderation of judgment, which springs quite as much from 
character as from intellect. If you would form a wise judgment of 
the future of a nation, observe carefully whether these qualities are 
increasing or decaying. Observe especially what qualities count for 
most in public life. Is character becoming of greater, or less, impor- 
tance 1 Are the men who obtain the highest posts in the nation men 
of whom in private life and irrespective of party competent judges 
speak with genuine respect? Are they men of sincere convictions, 
sound judgment, consistent lives, indisputable integrity! or are 
they men who have won their positions by the arts of a demagogue 
or an intriguer ; men of nimble tongues and not earnest beliefs — 
skillful, above all things, in spreading their sails to each passing 
breeze of popularity % Such considerations as these are apt to be 
forgotten in the fierce excitement of a party contest ; but if history 
has any meaning, it is such considerations that affect most vitally 



CAUSE AND EFFECT IN HISTORY. 107 

the permanent well-being of communities, and it is by observing 
this moral current that you can best cast the horoscope of a nation. 

This is not an inappropriate place to point another les- 
son of history, one presented by Lord Bacon in his essay On 
Innovations. These, he truly tells us, are " the births of 
time." " Time," he says, " is the greatest innovator." Also : 
u It were good, therefore, that men in their innovations 
would follow the example of Time itself ; which indeed in- 
novateth greatly, but quietly and by degrees scarce to be 
perceived." This is the lesson of patience and of watchful- 
ness. It by no means fellows that certain causes will not 
produce good results because they do not appear at once, 
or that other causes will not produce evil results because, 
they do not immediately declare themselves. " The move- 
ments of Providence," says GS-uizot, "are not restricted to nar- 
row bounds ; it is not anxious to deduce to-day the conse- 
quence of the premises it laid down yesterday. It may de- 
fer this for ages, till the fullness of time shall come. Its 
logic will not be less conclusive for reasoning slowly. Prov- 
idence moves through time, as the gods of Homer through 
space — it makes a step, and ages have rolled away." 

In a word, our student becomes familiar with some of 
the many valuable lessons of history, for it is impossible to 
pursue intelligently the facts without getting something of 
their meaning. He finds also, to quote Mr. Lecky again, 
that history " is one of the best schools for that kind of rea- 
soning which is most useful in practical life. It teaches 
men to weigh conflicting probabilities, to estimate degrees of 
evidence, to form a sound judgment on the value of authori- 
ties. . . . History is largely concerned with the kind of 
probability on which the conduct of life depends." 

Accident, or what Frederick the Great called " King Haz- 
ard," has played an important part in history. Mr. Lecky's 
question in regard to Mohammed, Charles Martel, and Wash- 
ington and Napoleon is quoted in another place. The same 
writer affirms that the course of European history would 



108 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

have been very different if Hannibal had taken and de- 
stroyed Rome after Cannae, or if France, instead of the Re- 
gency and the two succeeding Louises had been under such 
sovereigns as those of the elder house of Orange, or the 
Great Elector, or Frederick the Great. We can not even 
imagine in what channels history would have run if Oliver 
Cromwell had fallen at Edgehill instead of John Hampden, 
Wallenstein at Liitzen instead of Gustavus Adolphus, or 
Napoleon at Marengo instead of Desaix. The part that 
caprice plays in history is at once serious and amusing. 
After observing that love, the cause of which is an "I know 
not what," moves princes, armies, the entire world, Pascal 
adds : " If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole 
face of the earth would have been changed" ; and Mr. Green, 
remarking upon the " equable serenity " with which the 
Duke of Marlborough met the " pettiness of the German 
princes, the phlegm of the Dutch, the ignorant opposition 
of his officers, the libels of his political opponents," says : 
" There was a touch of irony in the simple expedients by 
which he sometimes solved problems which had baffled cabi- 
nets. The King of Prussia was one of the most vexatious 
of the allies, but all difficulty with him ceased when Marl- 
borough rose at a state banquet and handed him a napkin." 

Some words of caution must be added. The writer or 
the teacher of history should not use his theme as a vehicle 
for conveying favorite ideas or doctrines. It is not his main 
duty to teach moral lessons directly or to explain social or 
political philosophy. On the other hand, he is to tell his 
story as it was — as Carlyle puts it, "he is to come at some 
picture of the thing acted." What happened? is his first 
question, truthful narration his first duty. Bacon wrote, 
in the Advancement of Learning : " It is the true office of his- 
tory to represent the events themselves, and to leave the ob- 
servations and conclusions thereof to the liberty and faculty 
of every man's judgment." Causes, reasons, and theories 
must in no case be put in front of the facts. Moreover, the 



CAUSE AND EFFECT IN HISTORY. 109 

logical faculty may be employed with altogether too much 
freedom. These significant sentences come to us from that 
profound historical scholar, Guizot : 

It must not, however, be supposed that a bad principle radically 
vitiates an institution, nor even that it does it all the mischief of 
which it is pregnant. Nothing tortures history more than logic. 
No sooner does the human mind seize upon an idea, than it draws 
from it all its possible consequences, makes it produce in imagina- 
tion, all that it would in reality be capable of producing, and then 
figures it down in history with all the extravagant additions which 
itself has conjured up. This, however, is nothing like the truth. 
Events are not so prompt in their consequences as the human 
mind in its deductions. 

Let it be once admitted that the main function of the his- 
torian or teacher is to inculcate moral, political, or religious 
lessons, and no one can tell what distortion of facts would 
follow. The historian can not be too full of reverence for 
what Carlyle called the "verities." 

The caution must be made still stronger in the case of 
elementary history. Here the influence of the teacher may 
be peculiarly warping, as the pupil is little more than wax 
in his hands. Besides, at this stage of progress the main 
thing in hand is to amass materials that may be worked up 
afterward. 

Once more, the philosophy should be incidental rather 
than obtrusive ; it should follow the examples. A tale well 
told points its own moral and adorns itself. History is use- 
ful as a guide only when it is truly narrated. Its very first 
moral lesson is to teach the truth. Accordingly, the 
teacher, to adopt another's words, " should have the genuine 
historical instinct, the true enthusiasm to know what hap- 
pened ; he should be fond of the story for its own sake, and 
be in love with things not merely for what they were, but 
simply because they were." 



CHAPTER X. 

PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY, 

References. — Reclus : The Earth and its Inhabitants, with Nu- 
merous Illustrations and Maps (Europe 5 vols., Asia 4 vols., Af- 
rica 4 vols., Oceanica 1 vol., North and South America 4 vols. The 
last four volumes are entitled, British North America ; Mexico, Cen- 
tral America, and the West Indies ; The United States, and South 
America), The Earth, a Descriptive History of the Phenomena of 
the Life of the Globe, The Ocean, Atmosphere, and Life, "being the 
Second Series of a Descriptive History of the Life of the Globe ; 
Guyot : Earth and Man ; Montesquieu : The Spirit of Laws (Books 
XIV.-XVIII.) ; Buckle and Draper : titles before given {passim) ; 
Bryce : The Contemporary He view, XLIX. (History and Geography) ; 
Mackinder : Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, IX., 
New Series (On the Scope and Methods of Geography) ; Freeman : 
Historical Geography of Europe (Introduction) ; Curtius : History 
of Greece (Book the First, I., Land and People) ; Thirlwall : History 
of Greece (I., Geographical Outlines of Greece) ; Dr. W. Smith : A 
History of Greece (Introduction) ; Lanciani : Ancient Rome in the 
Light of Recent Discoveries (II., The Foundation and Prehistoric 
Life of Rome) ; Goldwin Smith : Lectures and Essays (The Great- 
ness of the Romans, The Greatness of England. These essays, first 
published in The Contemporary Review, are excellent) ; Taine : 
History of English Literature (Introduction), Art in Greece; Green: 
A Short History of England, The Making of England, A Short 
Geography of the British Islands ; Huxley : Physiography ; Mill : 
The Realm of Nature, An Outline of Physiography (XVIL, Man in 
Nature) ; Shaler : Introduction to the Narrative and Critical History 
of America, IV. (Physiography of North America), Nature and Man 
in America (both excellent); Burgess: Political Science and Con- 
stitutional Law (Book I., Chap. II., The Present Geographical Dis- 
tribution of Nations and Nationalities, III., National Political 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. m 

Character, IV., Conclusions of Practical Politics from the Forego- 
ing Considerations in regard to Physical, Ethnical, and Political 
Geography, and National Characteristics) ; Mahan : The Influence 
of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783, The Influence of Sea Power 
, upon the French ^Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812. (A distin- 
guished foreign critic has called the author of these works the cre- 
ator of the philosophy of naval history.) 

The reciprocal influence of Man and Nature is one of the 
hard subjects with which modern scientists and philosophers 
are called upon to deal. The action of Nature and the reac- 
tion of man, or, as some might prefer to state it, the action 
of man and the reaction of Nature, are the questions that it 
presents for answer. While it is not necessary that the 
teacher of history should deal with these questions on their 
speculative side, it is necessary for him to recognize the 
principal physical factors. 

Naturally, the first of these factors to attract attention 
was climate, the influence of which on the character and 
history of nations was recognized by the Greek thinkers. 
This recognition is well illustrated by the passage, hereafter 
quoted, in which Aristotle points out the contrast between 
Asia and Europe. However, the Greek writers never worked 
out the subject. 

Bodin, who died in 1569, was apparently the first modern 
writer to investigate the historical influence of physical 
causes, as well as the first to vindicate the claim of all reli- 
gious confessions in a state to equal political toleration. Di- 
viding nations into northern, middle, and southern, he in- 
vestigated with much fullness of knowledge how climate and 
other geographical conditions affect the bodily strength, the 
courage, the intelligence, the humanity, the chastity, and, 
in short, the mind, morals, and manners of peoples ; what 
influence mountains, winds, diversities of soil, etc., exert ; 
and elicited a great number of general views, some of which 
are false, but some also true.* 

* Flint : History of Philosophy, p. 74. 



112 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

In the Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, Montesquieu 
sought to explain how laws are related to manners, climates, 
creeds, and forms of government. He laid great stress on 
the physical factors in civilization, and is sometimes said to 
have originated the doctrine of climates. Five of his books 
bear titles that indicate, in a general way, the range of his 
inquiries : Of Laws as relative to the Nature of Climate ; In 
what manner the Laws of Civil Slavery are relative to the 
Nature of the Climate ; How the Laws of Domestic Slavery 
have a Relation to the Nature of the Climate ; How the 
Laws of Political Servitude have a Relation to the Nature of 
the Climate ; Of Laws in the Relation that they bear to the 
Nature of the Soil. Although he trenches upon the practi- 
cal denial of the freedom of man, he still checks himself, 
arguing that laws also bear a relation to the principles which 
form the general spirit of the morals and customs of a na- 
tion — that is, the principles of human nature. 

This leads to the observation that here we meet two di- 
vergent lines of thought. The question at issue is the ad- 
justment of the material and the spiritual elements of his- 
tory. In general, it may be said that students of physical 
science, and others who have formed similar habits of 
thought, dealing mainly with Nature, are led to emphasize 
the material element ; while philosophers and metaphysi- 
cians, dealing mainly with the mind, tend to emphasize the 
spiritual element. 

Mr. Buckle pushed the naturalistic theory to its farthest 
limit. He denied all freedom to man, and made climate, 
food, soil, and the general aspects of Nature the supreme 
and ultimate historical causes. For example, he attributed 
the superstition of Italy, Spain, and Portugal to earthquakes 
and volcanic eruptions, and the Calvinistic theology of Scot- 
land to the rocks and mountains of the country and the sur- 
rounding ocean waste.* 

Dr. J. W. Draper wrote his History of the Intellectual 

* History of Civilization in England, vol. i, p. 29, 88, 89 ; vol. ii, p. 126. 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. H3 

Development of Europe, Civil Polity in America, and His- 
tory of the Civil Law, on a naturalistic theory. 

M. Taine laid great stress upon soil, sky, sea, climate, 
and food as factors in the intellectual and literary history 
of England ; in fact, he wrote his History of English Litera- 
ture on what he called scientific lines. This distinguished 
writer was accustomed to refer historical results to race, en- 
vironment, and the time. 

The distinguished scholar and diplomatist, Mr. George 
P. Marsh, handled the subject in his Man and Nature, now 
better known under the title, The Earth as modified by Hu- 
man Action. He undertook to " indicate the character and 
extent of the changes produced by human actions in the 
physical conditions of the globe, to point out the dangers of 
undue interference with the spontaneous arrangements of 
the organic or inorganic world, to suggest the possibility 
and importance of the restoration of harmonies that have 
been disturbed, and incidentally to illustrate the doctrine 
that man is, in both kind and degree, a power of a higher 
order than any of the other forms of animated life, which, 
like him, are nourished at the table of bounteous Nature." 
Without discussing his subject in its speculative bearings, 
Mr. Marsh accumulates a mass of most interesting facts 
showing that man can waste and repair Nature, and that 
he is rather her master than her slave. 

It is very easy to exaggerate the value of either the hu- 
man or the natural factor in history, and very hard to as- 
sign to either its just and appropriate influence. The fact 
is, neither one is a constant quantity ; both vary with coun- 
try, race, and time. 

The general subject has not been introduced for discus- 
sion on its speculative side, but merely to pave the way for 
some examples of physical causation. First, however, it 
should be observed that Nature exerts upon man two kinds 
of influence. How far climate, food, soil, and the general 
aspects of Nature affect his mind and character directly, we 
have no means of determining ; but it is obvious that the 



114 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

direct effect of such agents is much less than the indi- 
rect effect. Through the social wants and activities 
that they create and modify, through man's occupations 
and pleasures, through his general habits, they exert 
upon him a profound influence from his cradle to his 
grave. The sum total of such influence is known as en- 
vironment. 

Professor Bryce, discussing with much learning and 
acuteness the relations of history and geography, divided 
the general subject of environment into three groups of 
factors, all closely related : 

I. The influences that are due to the configuration of the 
earth's surface — that is to say, to the distribution of land and 
sea, the arrangement of mountain chains, table-lands, and 
valleys, the existence of rivers, and the basins which they 
drain. Nothing can be more evident than that these facts 
almost wholly controlled the early movement of races, such 
as migration, and that they powerfully affect military opera- 
tions, the character and extent of conquests, the size and the 
boundaries of states, the location and character of cities, the 
direction, kind, and abundance of facilities for travel and 
transportation, the presence or absence of harbors, and mari- 
time commerce, growth of military and naval power, the 
development of special industries, and many other things of 
the greatest interest. 

Dr. Draper remarks that Europe is geographically a pen- 
insula, and historically a dependency of Asia. The plains of 
Central and Northern Asia are prolonged through Centra? 
Europe to the German Ocean and the Baltic ; the average 
height of the larger continent is 1,132 feet above the level of 
the sea, of the smaller one 671 feet ; from the Pacific to the 
Atlantic Ocean, north of the great central east-and-west 
mountain axis, a distance of more than 6,000 miles, an army 
could march without having to encounter any elevation of 
more than a few hundred feet ; with an abundance of springs 
and head waters, but without any stream capable of offering 
a serious obstacle, this tract has a temperature well suited to 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. H5 

military operations ; it coincides practically with the annual 
isothermal line of fifty degrees, keeping just north of the 
limit of vine production — in which physical facts Dr. Draper 
finds the reasons why the Oriental hordes have again and 
again poured themselves over Europe. 

The Spanish Peninsula has a marked geographical char- 
acter, as any one who will look at its mountain and river 
systems, its plains and forests on a map, can see ; and this 
character has given a marked individuality to Spanish war- 
fare from the earliest times, as well as influenced its history 
in many other important ways. Spain is a hard country to 
subdue, an easy one to defend — as witness its history in the 
days of Hannibal, of Sertorius, and of Napoleon and Well- 
ington. Perhaps no book of history was ever written that 
better illustrates the influence of geography and topography 
upon the conduct of war than Napier's History of the War 
in the Peninsula and the South of France. Guerrilla war- 
fare, it is worth observing, found its name, if indeed it did 
not originate, in Spain. The name dates from the great con- 
test just mentioned. " The term guerrilla" says Dr. Lieber, 
" is the diminutive of the Spanish word guerra, and means 
petty war — that is, war carried on by detached parties, gen- 
erally in the mountains " — a kind of war to which the coun- 
try is especially adapted. 

The position and configuration of England, her insular 
character and relations to the continent, the- distribution of 
her river valleys and uplands, and the relations of these 
features to one another and to the seashore, have had a 
prodigious influence upon English history and character. 
How potent these natural factors were in the German con- 
quest of the island, Mr. Green has admirably shown in his 
Short History of England, and still more fully in his Mak- 
ing of England. Mr. Mackinder well observes that the sec- 
ond of these books is largely " a deduction from geographical 
Conditions of what must have been the course of history." 
It may be remarked that if the study of English history 
could be accompanied by the study of such a book as Mr. 



HO HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

and Mrs. Green's Short Geography of the British Islands, it 
would he a very great advantage. 

II. The influences which belong to meteorology and 
climate, meaning thereby the conditions of heat and cold 
under which a race of men develops itself with the amount 
of rain and the recurrence of drought. The winds also play 
their part. These agents directly affect man's health, 
strength, and mental character ; while indirectly, through 
soil and fertility, with which they are so closely connected, 
they almost wholly control his occupations. It is no acci- 
dent that great peoples and states have never appeared be- 
yond the polar circles or within the tropics, or that the main 
historical movement has been confined to the north temper- 
ate zone. The Greek genius was largely indebted to the 
physical influences under which it was developed. u Mild 
and clement is our atmosphere," says Euripides ; " the cold 
of winter is for us without rigor, and the arrows of Phoebus 
do not wound us." 

A people formed by such a climate [says M. Taine, to whom 1 
am indebted for the quotation] develops faster and more harmoni- 
ously than any other ; man is neither prostrated nor enervated by 
excessive heat, nor chilled or indurated by severe cold. He is 
neither condemned to dreamy inactivity nor to perpetual labor ; he 
does not lag behind in mystic contemplation nor in brutal barbar- 
ism. Compare a Neapolitan or a Provengal with a man of Brit- 
tany, a Hollander, or a Hindoo, and you will recognize how the 
mildness and moderation of physical nature endow the soul with 
vivacity, and so balance it as to lead the mind thus disposed and 
alert to thought and to action. 

Thucydides observed that thought was the only peculiar- 
ity of the Athenians. 

III. The third class of elements that make up environ- 
ment are the productions which a country offers to human 
industry. Here we inventory mines, quarries, the products 
of wells and springs, field and forest, fisheries of all kinds, 
and animals both wild and domesticated. Professor Bryce 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. H7 

illustrates how a narrow range of productions fatally re- 
stricts progress in the arts and refinements of life, by in- 
stancing Iceland. The race is of admirable quality, but the 
country produces nothing save a few sheep and horses, and 
some sulphur ; it has not even fuel, except such driftwood as 
is cast upon its shores. He adds that if the highest European 
races were placed in Central or Northern Asia they would 
find it almost impossible to develop a high type of civiliza- 
tion for want as well of fuel as of the sources of commercial 
wealth. Before entering upon that industrial stage in which 
she has distanced all other countries, England had reached 
a high stage of agricultural development ; she has now ac- 
quired such a momentum that she could possibly survive as 
an industrial nation the exhaustion of her mineral wealth ; 
but she could never have emerged from the agricultural 
state and attained her present industrial, commercial, and 
financial standing without her abundant supplies of tin, 
copper, iron, and coal. In the earlier period the center of 
her population, power, and wealth lay in the south, where 
the richest agricultural districts are found ; but in the pres- 
ent period this center has moved northward, where exist the 
sinews of manufacturing and commerce. Geological maps 
and maps showing the distribution of population, of wealth, 
and even of political parties, are very significant when 
studied in relation. Eastern Yorkshire and western Lan- 
cashire are strongly conservative in politics ; western York- 
shire and eastern Lancashire tend to radicalism ; the eastern 
part of the one county and the western part of the other are 
mainly agricultural districts, where the influence of the 
upper classes and of the farmers is decisive, while within 
these limits lies a great manufacturing, mining, and trad- 
ing population, with wit, education, and radical opinions. 
" Those who examine Lancashire schools are struck," says 
Professor Bryce, " by the difference between the sharpness 
o/ the boys in the east Lancashire hill country and the slug- 
gishness of those who dwell on the flats along the coast be- 
tween Liverpool and Morecambe." The mines of Lanca- 



118 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH IIISTOKY. 

shire called manufactures into being and created trade; and 
these factors, with all that they imply, have changed the 
region from a fastness of Toryism into a hive of Radicalism. 
So true is it, as Mr. Green says, that " history strikes its roots 
in geography ; for without a clear and vivid realization of 
the physical structure of a country the incidents of the life 
which men have lived in it can have no interest or mean- 
ing. Through history again politics strike their roots in 
geography, and many a rash generalization would have been 
avoided had political thinkers been trained in a knowledge 
of the earth we live in, and of the influence which its vary- 
ing structure must needs exert on the varying political tend- 
ency and institutions of the peoples who part its empire be- 
tween them." 

The foregoing illustrations will make plain Professor 
Bryce's very useful distinctions. At the same time, the ele- 
ments into which he resolves environment are always more 
or less mixed up in history ; and since it requires some skill 
to separate them, it will be better, in teaching the elements of 
the subject, not to attempt careful analysis but to handle the 
factors in groups. Some illustrations of this method may 
be presented. 

Mr. Buckle points out that the growth of civilization is 
possible only in countries having a class of men who. possess 
the time, the disposition, and the means to observe and to 
investigate the various subjects upon which such growth 
depends, as the facts of Nature and the laws of the human 
mind. But a class of men in the possession of leisure, dis- 
position to study, and opportunity to study, can exist only in 
countries where there is a sufficient accumulation of wealth 
to free them from the necessity of constant physical toil. 
Obviously, if every man is intensely absorbed in the struggle 
for physical existence, society can not move forward. 
Thirdly, the accumulation of wealth depends upon natural 
factors ; soil and climate condition the rewards of labor, cli- 
mate conditions the energy and constancy of labor. Hence, 
fourthly, those countries were sure to become the earliest 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. H9 

seats of civilization where Nature provided good opportuni- 
ties for the accumulation of wealth, and so the material pos- 
sibility of study and mental progress. Finally, he remarks 
that such conditions existed in Hindostan and in Egypt, in 
Central America, in Mexico, and in Peru, countries that be- 
came early if not the earliest seats of civilization on their 
respective continents. Herodotus called Egypt the gift of 
the Nile. The Nile Valley is a thick deposit of the richest 
soil, which the annual overflow of the river constantly re- 
plenishes ; the rainless sky and the equable temperature 
make continuous labor possible, while the river furnishes 
the source of natural or artificial irrigation. The early hus- 
bandman was assured good harvests and abundant food, and 
thus the first condition of progress was secured. 

Greece affords one of the best illustrations of the effect of 
environment upon historical development. The psycho- 
logical effects of the sky and atmosphere have already been 
mentioned. The geniality of the climate tends to modera- 
tion in eating and to the use of light clothing, necessities 
that the country well supplied ; as a result, man was not 
compelled to undergo grinding toil to procure the means of 
material subsistence, and so was left with time to indulge 
the disposition to investigate, which all the influences that 
played upon him tended to create. The country is a penin- 
sula, or rather a complex of peninsulas, the whole singularly 
pierced by gulfs and bays, as well as crossed and recrossed 
by mountain ranges, and so divided into a great number of 
small plains and valleys, each more or less cut off from the 
others, at the same time that it lies open to the sea. At no 
point is the traveler far from the seashore, and at few points 
is he out of sight of the great mountain mass of Parnassus, 
which occupies such an important j)lace in Greek history. 
It is said to be very difficult for one who has never visited 
Greece to realize the diminutive scope of its geography. At- 
tica and iEgina together contain no more than seven hun- 
dred and fifty square miles of territory, and in antiquity 
they never had a population exceeding half a million people. 
10 



120 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

In addition to this remarkable accessibility from the sea, 
attention must be drawn to the larger geographical relations 
of Greece — to the islands, large and small, that surround it 
on all sides except the north ; to the not distant shores of 
Thrace, of Asia Minor, of Africa and of Italy ; to the Black 
Sea, to the Nile, and to the Mediterranean. In these factors 
scholars have found causes of the most prominent features 
of the Greek mind and life ; the wonderful mental gifts of 
the people, their seafaring, trading, and colonizing habits, 
their free, adventurous spirit, and especially their political 
institutions, and the whole form and spirit of their public 
life. In her early history Greece contained about as many 
independent states as she had definite units of territory, plain 
or valley ; a state of things that resulted in a free and vigor- 
ous political life, marked by intense patriotism and local 
spirit, but tending to division and strife, to the lack of gen- 
eral political ideas, to internal war, to what the Germans 
call particularism, and Americans States-rights, and so to 
eventual weakness. The final result was, since these divis- 
ive and separatist tendencies could never be overcome, that 
Greece became a prey to internal faction and external force. 
Environment, first by contributing to the creation of the 
people, and then to the direction and control of their activ- 
ity, certainly had much to do with causing the brilliant de- 
velopment and early decadence of the Grecian race. It was 
no miracle and no accident that the first European civiliza- 
tion, and in some respects the greatest European civilization, 
sprang up in Greece. 

As a rule, the location of cities has been controlled by 
what Mr. Mackinder happily calls "geographical selection." 
Two excellent examples of such selection may be borrowed 
from that writer. On the northeast of the Ganges Valley 
lie the vast Himalayas, practically impassable to man ; on 
the northwest is the Sulaiman range, pierced by passes 
through which numerous conquerors have entered India 
from the uplands of Iran. Parallel with the Sulaiman is the 
Thar, or great Indian Desert. Between the desert and the 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 121 

Himalayas the fertile belt is closely contracted, forming a 
pass that affords the only approach to the valley at that ex- 
tremity. Close to the eastern end of this pass, at the head of 
the Ganges navigation, stands Delhi, the natural center of 
commerce and the natural base of military operations in all 
that region. At its eastern extremity the valley is very in- 
accessible, owing to the absence of natural harbors and to 
the heavy surfs that beat upon the shore. But the mouth 
of the river is a great water-gate for the interior, and here 
on the Hoogly, at the intersection of ocean and river trans- 
portation, a natural base of naval and military operations, 
the British have built up Calcutta. The fertility of the 
Ganges Valley is proverbial ; at its extremities are found 
the two gates of India, and it is quite in the nature of things 
that these gates are held by the cities of Delhi and Calcutta. 

Alexander located the city that bears his na*me at the in- 
tersection of the Mediterranean and Nile commerce, having 
particularly in view the control of the most southern of the 
old lines of communication between the Indies and the West. 
For many centuries Alexandria was the grand depot from 
which the Indian goods were distributed throughout the 
Mediterranean basiu. Constantinople is the gate both to the 
Black Sea and the JKgean, both to southeastern Europe 
and northwestern Asia, according as you approach it from 
the one direction or the other. This city also sits upon one 
of the old channels of Eastern commerce. 

Study of the cities of Italy is peculiarly interesting. 
Rome was probably founded by shepherds, who, moved by 
volcanic disturbances or by an insufficiency of pasture lands, 
or by both, descended with their flocks and herds from 
their ancestral seats on the Alban Hills into the extensive 
and fertile plain watered by the Tiber and encircled by 
mountains and the sea that has long been known as the 
Campagna. Coming to the conspicuous group of hills and 
ridges near the river, they seized and fortified the Palatine, 
which best met their need of a dwelling place and a protec- 
tion. Livy describes Rome as situated on healthy hills, by a 



122 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

convenient river, equally adapted to inland and maritime 
commerce, the sea not too far off to prevent a brisk inter- 
national trade, or so near as to expose it to the danger of a 
sudden attack from foreign vessels ; a site right in the cen- 
ter of the peninsula — a site made, as it were, on purpose to 
allow the city to become the greatest in the world. No whit 
inferior were the military and political advantages of the 
site. 

In the first place [says Professor G old win Smith], her position 
was such as to bring her into contact from the outset with a great 
variety of races. The cradle of her dominion was a sort of ethno- 
logical microcosm. Latins, Etruscans, Greeks, Campanians, with 
all the mountain races and the Gauls, made up a school of the most 
diversified experience, which could not fail to open the minds of the 
future masters of the world. How different was this education 
from that of a people which is either isolated, like the Egyptians, or 
comes into contact perhaps in the way' of continual border hostility 
with a single tribe ! ... In the second place, the geographical cir- 
cumstances of Rome combined with her character would naturally 
lead to the foundation of colonies, and of that colonial system which 
forms a most important and beneficent part of her empire. 

The great change in their circumstances wrought a grad- 
ual change in the character of the primitive shepherds and 
their descendants. They took on one that better suited their 
new position. Planted as they were in a meeting place of 
nations, brought into close and constant competition with 
the strongest peoples of Italy, the Romans developed those 
practical, industrial, and business habits, and those military 
and political virtues that finally gave them universal empire. 
Rome made the Romans quite as much as the Romans made 
Rome. Hidden away in some out-of-the-way place, there is 
not the slightest reason to think that they would ever have 
made a name in history. All roads led to Rome before the 
first one had been built. 

It is interesting to observe the relations of the principal 
cities of Northern Italy to the great valley of the Po on the 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 123 

one side and to the mountain passes that connect the Penin- 
sula with Central and Western Europe on the other. Turin 
commands the approach to the Mont Cenis Pass from the 
south. Milan, which has as changeful a history perhaps as 
any city in Europe, stands almost in the mouths of the Sim- 
plon*and St. Grothard passes. Verona is at the opening of 
the Brenner. It is difficult to imagine a state of things in 
Northern Italy other than complete barbarism in which 
Milan would not be an important city. At first one might 
not detect the hand of geographical selection in the case of 
Venice. Still, under the extraordinary circumstances of the 
times in which it was founded its site was happily chosen. 
In his course of destruction, Attila obliterated many towns, 
including the colony of Aquilia, which stood at the head of 
the Adriatic, in some such relation as Trieste stands to-day. 
The homeless inhabitants of Aquilia sought refuge among 
the islands formed by the detritus brought down to the gulf 
by the network of rivers that rise in the Alps and that dis- 
charge themselves on that shore. This immigration was 
the beginning of Venice. Shut in by the sea, cut off from 
the land, protected by her inaccessibility, favored in later 
times by the Eastern Empire, and planted on what was 
long the best route for the conveyance of the rich products 
of Indian commerce to Central and Western Europe, Venice 
slowly raised her obscure head above the mud of the la- 
goons, developed a population rich in practical talents and 
in genius, and won and long held a foremost place among 
the powers of the world. 

Not to mention other writers, both Mr. Green and Mr. 
Mackinder have graphically described the physical factors 
that contributed to the founding of the great British me- 
tropolis, in the position of which lay whole volumes of Eng- 
lish history. " That many causes conspire to maintain the 
greatness of London," says Mr. Mackinder, " is a fact to be 
marked. It is the secret of its j)ersistent growth from the 
earliest times. The importance of the given geographical 
features varies with the degree of man's civilization. A 



124 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

city which depends on one physical advantage may fall at 
any moment. A single mechanical discovery may effect 
the change." In connection with London, Green's Short 
Geography and Huxley's Physiography may be studied with 
much advantage. 

Geographical selection is easily recognizable in the loca- 
tion of the large cities of our own country. New York has 
clearly demonstrated its superiority to all other points 
on the Atlantic coast as a great mart of trade. At the 
time of the Revolution both Boston and Philadelphia sur- 
passed it in population, but once connected with the West 
by a great line of internal communication, the Erie Canal, 
its extraordinary growth began. It should have been per- 
fectly apparent from the first opening up of the Great 
West to the light of civilization, that whenever that vast re- 
gion should become the seat of empire, there would be a 
great center of population, trade, and wealth at the head of 
Lake Michigan, at or near where Chicago stands. San 
Francisco is only the redemption of Nature's pledge that a 
great city would spring up at the Golden Gate whenever the 
Pacific Slope should really come into the possession of civ- 
ilized men. 

In such a sketch as the present one the sea calls for little 
more than casual mention. That it modifies climate, chang- 
ing temperature and distributing moisture, and so bringing 
fertility of soil ; that it affects the character and habits and 
the pursuits of men and nations; that it yields rich harvests 
of wealth to the industry of man — furs, fish, pearls, sponges, 
corals, ivory, amber, salt, oil, and chemicals ; that it furnishes 
the great highways of commerce and of war, and opens 
to the statesman and jurist a whole volume of questions that 
profoundly affect human progress — these are commonplaces. 
The influence of sea currents, of the trade winds and the 
monsoons upon human society, is suggested, if not worked 
out, in every book of physical geography. On the maritime 
and naval side history does full justice to the theme. Wit- 
ness such volumes as those of Captain Mahan's The Influ- 



PHYSICAL CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 125 

ence of Sea Power upon History, and The Influence of Sea 
Power upon the French Revolution and Empire. 

In the British Islands we have the most notable example 
of the effect of insular conditions, physical and human, 
upon civilization. Speaking of the special political attri- 
butes of an island, Professor Goldwin Smith finds that it is 
likely to be settled by a bold and enterprising race, devoted 
to political liberty ; that the spirit of freedom and independ- 
ence of this race is likely to be intensified by the very pro- 
cess of migration ; that the island is likely to be free from 
invasion, and so be left to develop in its own way ; that its 
isolation tends in the same direction, and that an insular 
position gives birth to commerce and calls out the corre- 
sponding elements of political character. Add to these attri- 
butes the climate of Great Britain, its agricultural and min- 
eral resources, and its relations to the continent of Europe 
and the Atlantic Ocean, and we have the principal natural 
factors that have contributed to its greatness. Here are the 
causes, in great degree, of England's vast colonial empire. 
It may be observed, too, that no one can imagine in what 
different directions English history would have run had the 
country been trampled under the feet of invading armies, 
like France, Germany, or Italy, as to some extent must 
have been the case had not the EngHsh Channel prevented. 

What has been said in this chapter is but a meager treat- 
ment of a great subject. It will, however, serve to ex- 
plain the stress that historians place on environment, and 
also emphasize the observations of a distinguished living 
scholar : 

A national history, as it seems to us, ought to commence with 
a survey of the country or locality — its geographical position, cli- 
mate, productions, and other physical circumstances as they bear 
on the character of the people. We ought to be presented, in 
short, with a complete description of the scene of the historic 
drama, as well as with an account of the race to which the actors 
belong. In the early stages of its development, at all events, man 
is mainly the creature of physical circumstances ; and by a system- 



126 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

atie examination of physical circumstances we may to some extent 
cast the horoscope of the infant nation as it lies in the arms of 
Nature. 

Still, we can* not too much emphasize the fact that en- 
vironment does not make the nation or build the city. 
Geographical selection points the way, but man does the 
work. Sometimes, indeed, he seems to disregard the direc- 
tions. Read Macaulay's eloquent description of Tyre, built 
on a bare rock in the midst of the sea ; of Venice, rising out 
of the lagoons of the Adriatic ; of Amsterdam, reared upon 
a desolate marsh covered with fog. Then there is St. Peters- 
burg, that Tsar Peter built in a swamp inundated by the 
Neva, by the tide, and by on-shore storms. Much stress 
must also be placed on what Mr. Mackinder calls " the mo- 
mentum acquired in the past. . . . Milford Haven, in the 
present state of things, offers far greater physical advan- 
tages than Liverpool for the American trade ; yet it is im- 
probable that Liverpool will have to give way to Milford 
Haven, at any rate in the immediate future. It is a case 
of vis inertia" The location of our National capital was 
the effect of causes that no longer exist; at present it is very 
far from satisfactory to large portions of the country ; but 
there is not the slightest probability at present of some 
Western city taking the place of Washington. Chicago 
may not have been the best site for the great center of col- 
lection and distribution at the head of Lake Michigan ; but 
it has acquired such momentum, that not even its total 
destruction could now effect a change so long as the site 
remains inhabitable. 



CHAPTER XI. 

HUMAN CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 

References.— Aristotle: The Politics (VII, 7) ; Flint : The Philos- 
ophy of History in Germany and France (Introduction); Guizot, 
History of Civilization ; Lecky : History of the Rise and Influence of 
the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe (Introduction), The Political 
Value of History ; Carlyle : Heroes and Hero Worship ; Buckle, 
Draper, Bryce, Mackinder, and Lavisse, as before. 

Marsh : The Earth as Modified by Human Action (Introduction). 

It must not be supposed that environment alone accom- 
plishes any historical result. Environment acts upon and 
through man, contributing to the formation of his character 
and conditioning his activities. In the truest sense, Nature 
is not an historical cause at all. History is not primarily 
a study of circumstances, hut of the human agents that 
exist and act among circumstances ; not a study of envi- 
ronment, but of what man does acting under environment. 
Hence the paramount importance of the topics to be pre- 
sented in this chapter. 

Human nature sums up the main historic causes and 
agents ; the native and universal qualities of the race, the 
complex of characters that mark man off from inferior 
creatures. Sagacious as are some species of animals, we 
have no difficulty in distinguishing the works of man from 
their works — the ant, the bee, or the beaver. How human 
nature originates — whether it is the product of development 
from an inferior nature, as the evolutionists tell us, or the 
product of an original creative act, subsequently modified 
by external conditions — is a question quite apart from our 



128 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

present purpose. The main fact is, that man, irrespective 
of his origin, is the subject of history. Although hedged 
about with metes and bounds, he is capable within certain 
large limits of rising above circumstances or conditions and 
of asserting a lordship over Nature. Man, then, is the start- 
ing point in studying history. The teacher need not indeed 
begin with psychology, or with a theory of human nature ; 
moreover, since this is constantly assumed and generally 
understood, formally to introduce it on every occasion would 
be the merest pedantry ; still, there are times when some 
analysis may be profitably indulged in, as in inquiring into 
the causes of the slave trade and of wars of conquest. . These 
remarks premised, we may enter upon a more detailed ex- 
amination of our subject. 

I. How far race character and national character are due 
to native inherent qualities, and how far to environment, is 
a hard question, but fortunately one that lies outside of our 
present field. Certainly they are among the most potent 
of historical causes. In a celebrated passage Aristotle 
pointed out the obvious contrast between the repose of Asia 
and the energy of Europe. After speaking of the number 
of citizens of a state, he proceeds to speak of what should be 
their character : 

This is a subject which can be easily understood by any one who 
casts his eye on the more celebrated states of Hellas, and generally 
on the distribution of races in the habitable world. Those who 
live in a cold climate and in [northern] Europe are full of spirit, 
but wanting in intelligence and skill ; and therefore they keep their 
freedom, but have no political organization, and are incapable of 
ruling over others. Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and 
inventive, but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore they are al- 
ways in a state of subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic race, 
which is situated between them, is likewise intermediate in charac- 
ter, being high-spirited and also intelligent. Hence it continues 
free, and is the best governed of any nation, and, if it could be 
formed into one state, would be able to rule the world. There are 
also similar differences in the different tribes of Hellas ; for some of 



HUMAN CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 129 

them are of a one-sided nature, and are intelligent or courageous 
only, while in others there is a happy combination of both qualities. 

Summing up the teachings of Baron Montesquieu, Pro- 
fessor Flint tells us that — 

Every civilized people is pervaded by a common spirit, which is 
in fact but another word for the whole of its civilization, and which 
is the substance of its life, the chief source of its actions, carrying 
along with it those who are unconscious of it and those even who 
wish to resist it, incapable of being changed otherwise than slowly 
and by the concurrence of many agencies, and feebly modifiable by 
laws, while so profoundly operative on them as to be able to make 
them either honored or despised. 

The national character of the Jews, the Greeks, and the 
Romans — the first religious, the second philosophical and 
literary, and the third practical and legal in their genius — 
are historical factors of the greatest value and consequence. 
Such factors should be studied both with reference to the 
causes that produce them and the effects that they them- 
selves produce. Hereafter we shall have occasion to speak 
of the Spanish, French, and English characters as they re- 
veal themselves in early American history. 

II. To analyze the genius of the age — what the German 
calls the Time Spirit — showing what it is, how it comes, 
and why it goes — is no easy task. That it exercises a con- 
trolling power, subordinate only to race and national char- 
acter, can not be doubted. Great events can not be accom- 
plished until the world is ready for their accomplishment. 
The New Testament teaches that the greatest event in human 
history, the most supernatural, demanded a long previous 
preparation : when the fullness of time was come, God sent 
forth his Son. At one time the dogmatic spirit, at another 
time the scholastic spirit, at a third the spirit of classical an- 
tiquity, and then again the rationalistic or modern spirit, 
has swayed the minds of men. 

The Time Spirit creates the age. Some things can be done 
but once. The world will not see the Crusades repeated. 



130 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

The mediaeval cathedrals, which, as has been said, "often 
rose out of towns which were then little better than collec- 
tions of hovels, with but small accumulations of wealth, and 
without what we now deem the appliances of civilized life, 
and that also mark the highest ascent of man's spiritual na- 
ture above the realities of his worldly lot," can not be dupli- 
cated. We do not anticipate new migrations of nations like 
those that broke up the Roman Empire, and a second age of 
maritime discovery is impossible. 

The spirit of the age is not the creature of chance, but is 
the product of causes that may in part be discovered. For 
example, as one has observed, every great change of belief 
in Europe has been preceded by a great change in its intel- 
lectual condition ; the success of any opinon has depended 
less upon the force of its arguments or the ability of its ad- 
vocates than upon the predisposition of society to receive it, 
while this predisposition results from the intellectual type 
of the age. Men do new things because they want to do 
them, and they cease doing them because they have come to 
feel more interest in something else. So they change their 
opinions, not so much because they are convinced by formal 
arguments of the unsoundness of the old and of the sound- 
ness of the new, as because they grow out of the old and 
grow into the new. 

III. Individual genius is an historic cause. To adjust 
the great man and his time is almost as difficult as it 
is to adjust free will and universal causation. How far 
is the great man a cause, how far an effect ? At this 
point two divergent tendencies of thought present them- 
selves. 

Carlyle emphasizes in the strongest manner individual!" 
ties, and denounces the opposite tendency as machine-like 
and degrading. He sneers at all attempts to account for 
the great man, as to show that he is a product of the times, 
and maintains that universal history, " the history of what 
man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the his- 
tory of the great men who have worked here." His doc- 



HUMAN CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 131 

trine is that "history is the essence of innumerable biogra- 
phies." 

Mr. Buckle is perhaps the best representative of the 
counter tendency. He makes almost nothing of individ- 
ualities, denies the fact of free will, and resolves history 
into a necessary sequence, the action of general causes. 
The reasons by which writers of this class maintain their 
view within the political sphere, Mr. Lecky thus summa- 
rizes : 

In the sphere of politics a similar law prevails, and the fate of 
nations largely depends upon forces quite different from those on 
which the mere political historian concentrates his attention. The 
growth of military or industrial habits ; the elevation or depression 
of different classes ; the changes that take place in the distribution 
of wealth ; inventions or discoveries that alter the course or charac- 
ter of industry or commerce, or reverse the relative advantages of 
different nations in the competitions of life ; the increase and still 
more the diffusion of knowledge ; the many influences that affect 
convictions, habits, and ideals, that raise or lower or modify the 
moral tone and type — all these things concur in shaping the des- 
tinies of nations. Legislation is only really successful when it is 
in harmony with the general spirit of the age. Laws and statesmen 
for the most part indicate and ratify, but do not create. They are 
like the hands of the watch, which move obedient to the hidden 
machinery behind. 

The truth lies between these two extremes. Both in- 
dividualities and general causation play important parts in 
history. Peter the Hermit must preach the Crusade, Luther 
must lift up the banner of the Eeformation, Napoleon must 
lead the armies of the Eevolution ; but, on the other hand, 
the world must be ready for Peter the Hermit, for Luther, 
and for Napoleon, or he will accomplish little or nothing. 
Certainly the mere effervescence and fermentation of so- 
ciety in itself leads to nothing useful and permanent. The 
crusading spirit did not preach the Crusade, mere reforming 
tendencies did not nail the theses to the church door or con- 
front Charles V at Worms, the Eevolution as a Zeitgeist 



132 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH H1STOEY. 

did not overrun and conquer all Western and Central Eu- 
rope. Carlyle, in his hero worship, scouts the very condi- 
tions that make the hero possible ; Buckle, in his devotion 
to history as a science, overlooks the hero altogether. " The 
times," says Carlyle, " have indeed called loudly enough for 
the great man. and he has not answered." To which Mr. 
Buckle might reply with equal truth, " The great man has 
indeed called loudly enough to the times, and the times have 
not answered." M. Compayre tells us very truly that "the 
most brilliant personality can do nothing if the society in 
which it finds itself is not propitious, if circumstances do not 
second its action." Guizot very properly makes great men, 
as Charlemagne and Alfred, one of the elements of civiliza- 
tion in the eighth and ninth centuries, when Europe was 
laboring to emerge from her barbarous condition. 

While emphasizing the force of main historical currents, 
Mr. Lecky still assigns an important place to "men of 
genius, who are commonly at once representative and crea- 
tive. They embody and regulate the tendencies of their 
time, but they also frequently materially modify them, and 
their ideas become the subject or the basis of the succeeding 
developments." He observes further that men like Bacon* 
Descartes, and Locke " have introduced peculiar habits of 
thought, new modes of reasoning, new tendencies of in- 
quiry," thus giving a powerful causal impulse first to the 
higher literature and then to the more popular writers ; and 
also that'since invention and material change create intel- 
lectual influences — since a railroad, for example, can not be 
laid down without an intellectual result — "it is probable that 
Watt and Stephenson will eventually modify the opinions of 
mankind almost as profoundly as Luther or Voltaire." Mr. 
Lecky also tells us that, "though there are certain streams of 
tendency, though there is a certain steady and orderly evolu- 
tion that it is impossible in the long run to resist, yet indi- 
vidual action and even mere accident have borne a very 
great part in modifying the direction of history." He avows 
the opinion that if Mohammed had been killed in one of his 



HUMAN CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 133 

first skirmishes, Mohammedanism, with its prodigious con- 
sequences, would have been unheard of ; also the opinion 
that if Charles Martel had been defeated at the battle of 
Tours, the course of European history would have run in 
very different channels ; and asks, finally, what the result 
would have been " if, at the French Revolution, the supreme 
military genius had been connected with the character of 
Washington rather than with the character of Napoleon." 

Without entering further into the speculative discussion 
of the subject, we shall altogether miss the mark unless we 
recognize the force and value of the leaders of mankind, 
who are genuine historic causes of great potency. The his- 
tory of no country more forcibly illustrates the regular and 
orderly now of historical causation than our own ; but it is 
impossible to conceive what our history would have been 
without Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, Lin- 
coln, and Grant. 

Among the potent causes that act in history — in war, 
politics, religion, industry, and trade — ideas and sentiments 
must be assigned a high rank. Under every historical 
movement can be found some human factor that transcends 
mere physical causation. Even the most repulsive political 
and military struggles can be made intelligible by referring 
them to human motives. Armies have sometimes been 
counted the playthings of kings, and war their pastime. 
But the couplet — 

" But war 's a game which, were their subjects wise, 
Kings would not play at," [Not so in other cases similar.] 

is only partly true. Ambitious rulers have much to answer 
for, but war has not often been mere ruthless slaughter, 
killing for the sake of killing ; on the contrary, state poli- 
cies or national ideas are almost always more or less in- 
volved. Rome and Carthage contested the supremacy of 
the Mediterranean Sea ; they represented antagonistic ideas 
and policies, and the best interests of mankind demanded 
that Rome should triumph. The rule of England in India, 



134 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HTSTORY. 

harsh, as it sometimes seems, promotes the well-being of 
the people, and autocratic Russia is fulfilling a mission in 
Central Asia. The destroyers Alaric and Attila embodied 
the ideas and the passions of the societies that produced 
them, and from which they derived their power. Napoleon 
was the child of the Revolution ; Emerson says of him that 
he succeeded because he was surrounded by little Napoleons, 
who saw in him only their own aims and desires. " Gen- 
erally speaking," says Von Moltke, " it is no longer the am- 
bition of monarchs which endangers peace ; the passions of 
the people, its dissatisfaction with interior conditions and 
affairs, the strife of parties, and the intrigues of their leaders 
are the causes. " 

Now, it is the business of the historian, and of the teacher 
of history, to bring the ideas, sentiments, and passions that 
act in human affairs to the surface, and to make them intel- 
ligible. Why could not Rome and Carthage live at peace ? 
What did the Hohenstaufen emperors stand for, and what 
were the ideas of their foes south of the Alps ? When we 
pass from wars to campaigns and battles, we are still con- 
fronted by ideas, only the teacher must now be careful not 
to weigh the pupil down with an excess of details. To 
teach wars, campaigns, marches, and battles merely as facts 
is very unprofitable employment. Great military com- 
manders have always been men of great minds, and the im- 
provement of weapons, the perfection of army organization, 
and the extension of transportation facilities and means of 
supply are constantly making war more and more a matter 
of science. Not Richard the Lion-hearted, but Count von 
Moltke is the typical soldier of our times. Then the teacher 
of military history should recognize the difference between 
strategy and tactics : the first is the name of movements 
that bring armies together on the field of battle, the second 
of movements on the field itself. As a rule these smaller 
movements should be left to fall out of sight, for they will 
not be remembered ; commonly it is sufficient to grasp a 
battle as one transaction, but sometimes a brilliant manceu- 



HUMAN CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 135 

vre, a gallant charge, a stubborn defense, will seize the im- 
agination and fix the whole action in the mind. 

Such are some of the larger forces that act in history. 
All or nearly all of them may be separated into parts or 
elements, but it best answers the present purpose to handle 
them as units. They also interact, to a degree are mutual 
causes and effects, and they all work together toward one 
grand result. 

The relations of the two great groups of historic factors 
are very much a question of time and development. " With 
each advance of intellectual power, the dependence [of man] 
upon environment becomes more and more intimate, for 
with that intelligence the creature seeks beyond itself for op- 
portunities to gratify its desires." So says Professor Shaler. 
Professor Bryce presents a different view : 

Man in his early stages is at the mercy of Nature. Nature does 
with him practically whatever she likes. He is obliged to adapt 
himself entirely to her. But in process of time he learns to raise 
Jiimself above her. It is true he does so by humoring her, so to 
speak, by submitting to her forces. In the famous phrase of Bacon, 
Natura non nisi parendo vincitur, Nature is not conquered except 
by obeying her ; but the skill which man acquires is such as to make 
him in his higher stages of development always more and more in- 
dependent of Nature, and able to bend her to his will in a way that 
aboriginal man could not do. He becomes independent of climate, 
because he has houses and clothes ; he becomes independent of winds, 
because he propels his vessels by steam; to a large extent he be- 
comes independent of daylight, because he can produce artificial 
light. 

Mr. Mackinder takes the same view : 

The relative importance of physical features varies from age to 
age, according to the state of knowledge and of material civilization. 
The improvement of artificial lighting has rendered possible the ex- 
istence of a great community at St. Petersburg. The discovery of 
the Cape route to India led to the fall of Venice. The invention of 
the steam engine and the electric telegraph have rendered possible 

the great size of modern states. 
11 



136 H W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Touching the last point it may be observed that the 
American Union probably could not have attained its pres- 
ent proportions, and certainly could not have held perma- 
nently together if it had attained them, had these two great 
inventions never been made. 

Thus, in his savage state man is a feeble slave, cowering 
at the feet of Nature, his foster mother ; while in a -state of 
high civilization he obtains a mastery and lordship over her. 
Unfortunately, this lordship is not always beneficently as- 
serted. Man shows his power in destruction as well as in 
construction. Mr. Marsh reminds us that more than one 
half the extent of the Eoman Empire, "including the prov- 
inces celebrated for the profusion and variety of their spon- 
taneous and their cultivated products, ... is either deserted 
by civilized men and surrendered to hopeless desolation, or 
at least greatly reduced in both productiveness and popu- 
lation." Both history and architectural remains testify to 
a population, wealth, and power in Northern Africa, the 
Greater Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, 
and many other provinces of Asia Minor, Greece, Sicily, and 
parts even of Italy and Spain to which they are now and 
long have been utter strangers. More definitely, the learned 
author finds the causes of this state of things, partly in 
geological agents that man can not resist or guide, partly in 
ignorant disregard of the laws of Nature, as the consequences 
of war, misrule, tyranny, and despotism. "Man can not 
struggle at once," he says, " against crushing oppression and 
the destructive forces of inorganic Nature. When both are 
combined against him, he succumbs after a shorter or a 
longer struggle, and the fields he has won from the primeval 
wood relapse into their original state of wild and luxuriant 
but unprofitable forest growth, or fall into that of a dry 
and barren wilderness." "We may sum up in the words of 
M. Lavisse : 

Nature has written on the map of Europe the destiny of certain 
regions. She determines the aptitudes and hence the destiny of a 



HUMAN CAUSES THAT ACT IN HISTORY. 137 

people. The very movement of events in history creates, moreover, 
inevitable exigencies, one thing happening because other things have 
happened. On the other hand, Nature has left on the map of Eu- 
rope free scope to the uncertainty of various possibilities. History 
is full of accidents, the necessity of which cannot be demonstrated. 
Finally, there exists free power of action, which has been exercised 
by individuals and nations. Chance and freedom of action oppose 
alike the fatality of Nature and the fatality of historical sequence. 
To what extent each of these four elements has influenced history 
cannot be determined with exactness. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 

References.— The Duke of Argyll: Iona; Morison: Macaulay 
(English Men of Letters Series) ; Bryce : English Historical Review, 
vol. vii, page 497 (Edward Augustus Freeman); Fiske: Atlantic 
Monthly, January, 1893 (Edward Augustus Freeman) ; Morley : Crit- 
ical Miscellanies, Second Series (France in the Eighteenth Century) ; 
Stanley: Historical Memorials of Canterbury; Macaulay: Essays 
(Mackintosh's History of the Revolution of 1G88) ; Trevelyan : Life 
and Letters of Lord Macaulay (Chaps. VII, XI) ; Freeman : Methods 
of Historical Study ; Seeley : Macmillan's Magazine, vol. xlv, page 
43 (A Historical Society), id., vol. xlvii, page 76 (On History Again), 
The Expansion of England, Second Series (History and Politics); 
Schouler : Magazine of American History, vol. xviii, page 326 (His- 
torical Grouping). 

His Grace the Duke of Argyll, commenting upon those 
objects of interest so dissimilar in kind, the two neighboring 
islands, Iona and Staffa— " Iona dear to Christendom for 
more than a thousand years ; Staffa known to the scientific 
and curious only since the close of the last century "—ob- 
serves that "the aspects of Nature will always be more gen- 
erally attractive than the history of man. ... It requires," 
he says, " no previous knowledge, and no preparation of the 
memory or the imagination, to be impressed by Fingal's 
Cave. The great hall of columns standing around their 
ocean floor and sending forth in ceaseless reverberations the 
solemn music of its waves is a scene which appeals to every 
eye, which all can understand, and which none are likely to 
forget. . . . With Iona it is very different. Its interest lies 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 1 39 

altogether in human memories. The stranger must bring 
with him the knowledge and the reflection which alone en- 
able him to enjoy what is of real interest in the associations 
and in the appearance of the place." These observations, 
the appositeness of which will not be questioned, happily 
suggest a contrast between history and science. Whether 
the student of the one division of knowledge requires a larger 
preparation than the student of the other, we need not curi- 
ously inquire. It is certainly true that the observation and 
interpretation of the memorials of human life are less easy 
and congenial to the natural mind than the like processes in 
respect to the external world, and that the pursuit of history 
calls for a preparation quite different from that of science. 

The qualities that make the successful teacher are not dif- 
ferent from the qualities that make the successful historian. 
That great master of historical learning, Bishop Stubbs, said 
the author of A Short History of the English People, 
u possessed in no scanty measure all the gifts that contribute 
to the making of a great historian. He combined, so far as 
the history of England is concerned, a complete and firm 
grasp of the subject in its unity and integrity with a won- 
derful command of details and a thorough sense of perspec- 
tive and proportion. In him the desire of stating and point- 
ing the truth of history, was as strong as the wish to make 
both his pictures and his arguments telling and forcible. An d 
then, to add still more to the debt we owe him, there is the 
wonderful simplicity and beauty of the way in which he 
tells his tale." The more the items in this bill of particu- 
lars are considered, the more will their justness and compre- 
hensiveness appear. They are, grasp of the subject in its 
unity and integrity, command of details, sense of perspec- 
tive and proportion, desire to state and point the truth, and 
ability to tell a tale in a simple and pleasing manner. 

Grasp of the subject in its unity and mastery of de- 
tails are closely related. Manifestly, a subject can not be 
unified until its elements have been studied. Still, the two 
powers are not necessarily equal in the same mind ; one 



140 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

person may be distinguished by the number and variety of 
facts that he has accumulated, another by the completeness 
with which he has brought them into one general view. 
The emphasis should be placed with primary reference to 
the stage of progress that the pupil has made. In element- 
ary work the main thing is the acquirement of facts, in ad- 
vanced work more attention is paid to their organization. 

Sense of perspective and proportion directly involves the 
truth of history. Any year or period in a man's life must 
be seen in connection with his life as a whole. The man 
himself must be viewed in his relations to other men. And 
so it is with a city or a state. An age must be treated as a 
part of the whole historical movement before and after. If 
these familiar rules are disregarded, there is no telling what 
perversion and distortion will follow. 

Desire to state and point the truth hardly needs the em- 
phasis of a single word. History is moral knowledge ; 
rightly handled, it is one of our best moral disciplines and 
guides, while the critical arguments adduced to settle dates 
and places and other facts lead to conscientious mental hab- 
its, although in a moral sense they may be the least weighty 
elements to be considered. 

Ability to tell a tale in a pleasing way is of prime impor- 
tance to the teacher as well as to the writer of history. The 
word " story" is history abbreviated. From the days of 
Herodotus and Xenophon to the days of Macaulay * and 
Green, the historians who have been most read have been 



* A writer who justly contends that Macaulay's greatest power is his 
mastery of historical narrative says : " The interest of the story as a story is 
kept up with a profound and unsuspected art. The thread of the narrative 
is never dropped. When transitions occur — and no writer passes from one 
part of his subj ect to another with more boldness and freedom — they are 
managed with such skill and ease that the reader is unaware of them. A 
turn of the road has brought us in view of a new prospect ; but we are not 
conscious for a moment of having left the road. The change seems the 
most natural thing in the world." — Morison : Macaulay, Men of Letters 
Series. 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 141 

those who have best told their tale. Nowhere is style more 
important. For our purpose history that is not interesting 
is not history at all. There is, indeed, another class of his- 
torians : writers who criticise and argue, men like Stubbs 
and Freeman who have rendered invaluable service to the 
cause of truth ; but these writers are little known save to 
scholars and students. In the university historical criticism 
and discussion should be very prominent, in the college and 
secondary schools less prominent ; while in elementary 
work, no matter where done, narration should monopolize 
the minds of both pupil and teacher. 

The principal mental qualities required to teach history 
according to this model are easily discovered. They are a 
retentive memory, logical power to ana]yze and group facts, 
enthusiasm for the subject, sound judgment, clear insight 
into character and life, devotion to truth, persistence, vivid 
imagination, and a copious supply of clear and simple lan- 
guage. Only one or two of these qualities call for particu- 
lar comment. 

In few studies is an enthusiastic interest in the subject so 
necessary to the teacher. Its presence or absence will com- 
monly determine whether the pupil or class finds the history 
lesson a dull grind or a pleasant exercise. 

Historical insight depends intimately on human sympa- 
thy. You can not understand a man unless you can get at 
his point of view. You need not embrace his opinions or 
approve his actions, but you must be able, at least measurably, 
to think and to feel with him. It is because he is richly 
gifted with this power that the great historian is able to 
transport us to distant lands or remote ages, to surround us 
with new scenery, and to make us live a life different from 
our own. It is partly owing to the same cause that the his- 
torian is so apt to lose himself in his hero and become an 
apologist. 

We must now sketch some of the more important divi- 
sions of knowledge with which it is desirable that the teacher 
of history should be acquainted. 



142 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

First, mention may be made of practical current life. 
The maxims, " We reason from what we know," and " We 
proceed from the known to the unknown," nowhere find a 
more direct application than here. It is a commonplace 
that the child's political knowledge and training begin with 
observing facts around him — the policeman, the magistrate, 
the school board, and the town council. It has been said 
that when Macaulay " wants to make you understand a 
thing, he compares it with that which existed in his own 
day. The standard of the present is always with him." 
Historians have often been men of affairs. Xenophon and 
Caesar were soldiers, Polybius and Clarendon statesmen. 
Enlarging on this thought, Macaulay says Sir James Mack- 
intosh and Charles James Fox had one eminent qualifica- 
tion for writing history : 

They had spoken history, acted history, lived history. The turns 
of political fortune, the ebb and flow of popular feeling, the hidden 
mechanism by which parties are moved, all these things were the 
subjects of their constant thought and of their most familiar con- 
versation. Gibbon has remarked that his history is much the better 
for his having been an officer in the militia and a member of the 
House of Commons. The remark is most just. We have not the 
smallest doubt that his campaign, though he never saw an enemy, 
and his parliamentary attendance, though he never made a speech, 
were of far more use to him than years of retirement and study 
would have been. If the time that he spent on parade, and at mess 
in Hampshire, or on the Treasury-bench and at Brookes during the 
storms which overthrew Lord North and Lord Shelburne, had been 
passed in the Bodleian Library, he might have avoided some inac- 
curacies ; he might have enriched his notes with a greater number 
of references ; but he never would have produced so lively a picture 
of the court, the camp, and the senate house. 

Professor Bryce justly tells us that the vivid sense of 
reality which pervades Dr. Freeman's books is largely due 
to the keen interest that he took in public affairs, fdfceign 
even more than domestic. " He was fond of illustrating 
features of Roman history from incidents he had witnessed 



TIIE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 14.3 

in taking part in local government as a magistrate, and in 
describing the relations of Hermocrates and Athenagoras 
at Syracuse tie drew upon observations which, as he told his 
friends, he made in watching the discussions of the Hebdom- 
adal Council at Oxford." Dr. Freeman himself attributes 
the failure of some of the German writers to understand the 
ancient democracies to the fact that they had no first-hand 
knowledge of free institutions. 

On many matters of historical learning an Englishman — an Eng- 
lishman on either side of the Ocean — is better fitted to judge than 
a German. A Swiss or a Norwegian may judge of the workings of 
free constitutions in old Greece, in Italy, in any other land, because 
he, like the Englishman, has daily experience of their working in 
his own land. But these things are mysteries to German profes- 
sors, because they are mysteries to German statesmen also. The 
German scholar simply reads in a book of things which we are al- 
ways looking at and acting in. He, therefore, utterly fails to under- 
stand many things at Athens, or Home, or anywhere else, which 
come to us like our A, B, C. 

Mr. Bancroft was an active participant in public affairs ; 
while Mr. Parkman made ready for his remarkable delinea- 
tions of wilderness life when passing through the expe- 
riences that he has recorded in The Oregon Trail. The 
fact is, no recluse— no mere scholar toiling in his cabinet— 
although he may heap up historical learning, can write real 
history. Nor can a person who is out of touch with current 
life teach real history. No doubt Macaulay's method is a 
somewhat dangerous one ; but for the child there is no other 
method ; and we must depend upon later comparison and 
reflection to correct mistakes.* 



*Mr. John Morley, discussing the relative value of political preparation 
and ljlerary preparation for writing history, makes some remarks that are 
equally pertinent to the teacher : 

" It is indeed plain on the least reflection that close contact with political 
business, however modest in its pretensions, is the best possible element in 



144 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

As respects the advantages that arise from contact with 
living events, American teachers are peculiarly favored. 
In our democratic society all public affairs are open to every 
eye. There is no country in the world where the teacher 
can get closer to the currents of public life. 

Argument is not necessary to show that the teacher of 
history should be a student of the science of government. 
Political economy also and moral science lie close at hand. 

The relations of geography and history have been con- 
sidered in another place. In addition to studying the theater 
of history in books and maps, it is desirable that the historian 
should visit it in person. Thackeray said of Macaulay : " He 
reads twenty books to write a sentence ; he travels a hun- 
dred miles to make a line of description." Macaulay himself 
tells us that when in Rome he went to the Tiber, to the spot 
where the old Pons Sublicius stood, and looked about to see 
how his Horatius, then well advanced, agreed with the topog- 
raphy. His biographer tells us that he saw Glencoe in 
rain and in sunshine ; that he paid a second visit to Killie- 
krankie ; that he spent two full days at Londonderry, taking 
pains to sketch a good plan of the streets, walking alone or 
in company four times round the walls of the city for which 
he was to do what Thucydides had done for Platea. Many 
great historians have been tireless students both of geog- 
raphy and topography. 

It is very true that the average teacher of the history of 

the training of any one who aspires to understand and reproduce political 
history. Political preparation is as necessary as literary preparation. 
There is no necessity that the business should be on any majestic and im- 
perial scale. To be the guardian of the poor in an East-End parish, to be 
behind the scenes of some great strike of labor, to be an active member of 
the parliamentary committee of a Trades Council or of the executive com- 
mittee of a Union or a League, may be quite as instructive discipline as 
participation in mightier scenes. Those who write concrete history, with- 
out ever having taken part in practical politics, are, one might say, in the 
position of those ancients who wrote about the human body without ever 
having effectively explored it by dissection." — Critical Miscellanies : France 
in the Eighteenth Century. 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 145 

the United States will find it impossible to visit in person much 
of the historic ground with which he deals. But even a few 
spots well seen assist in understanding others that have not 
been seen. A few days spent intelligently in the Lake 
George region, on the field of Gettysburg, at Chattanooga, 
or Atlanta, will be of permanent advantage in more ways 
than one. Personal -knowledge of the ground gives a won- 
derful sense of reality to historical knowledge. Roman or 
Grecian history is never again the same thing to a person 
who has made a visit to Rome or Athens. Professor Good- 
win says : " I can conceive of no better preparation for en- 
thusiastic work than to spend eight months in the study of 
Greece itself, in viewing her temples and learning the secrets 
of their architecture, and in studying geography and history 
at once- by exploring her battlefields, her lines of communi- 
cation through the mountain passes, and the sites of her fa- 
mous cities." And still another has said : "You can stand 
on Mount Pentelicus and study history by the hour." 

To the teacher of ancient history, or of the history of 
modern Europe, some knowledge of antiquities is indis- 
pensable. Dr. Freeman attached high value to architecture 
as a handmaid of historical research. He is said to have 
acquired a wonderfully full and exact knowledge of the - 
most remarkable churches and castles in England, as well 
as considerable skill in sketching them. By the end of his 
life he had accumulated a collection of thousands of draw- 
ings, made by himself, of notable buildings in France, Ger- 
many, Italy, and Dalmatia, as well as in the British Islands. 
Painting and statuary, as well as philology, bear on many 
historical problems. A knowledge of antiquities is valu- 
able. Never before has there been so much interest as now 
in the old Peruvians, in the Aztecs, in the Red Indians, and 
in the Mound Builders. Then in dealing with these subjects 
some knowledge of ethnology, or the science of races, is 
necessary. 

Dean Stanley, whose own historical writings derive a 
vivid sense of reality from his enthusiastic study of geogra- 



14:6 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

phy, topography, and historical monuments, says in his lec- 
ture on Edward the Black Prince : " Every one who has 
endeavored to study history must be struck by the advan- 
tage which those enjoy who live within the neighborhood 
of great historical monuments. To have seen the place 
where a great event happened ; to have seen the picture, the 
statue, the tomb of an illustrious man, — is the next thing to 
being present at the event in person, to seeing the scene with 
our own eyes." 

The introduction to the revised edition of A Short His- 
tory of the English People, written by Mrs. Green since her 
husband's death, sheds a flood of light upon the processes by 
which the mind of its author was formed. It also illus- 
trates admirably the value to the student of history of 
participation in real active life, as well as personal study 
of the historical localities and monuments that lie about 
him. 

John Eichard Green was born at Oxford in 1837, and 
when eight years old was sent to Magdalen Grammar 
School, then held in a small room within the precincts of the 
college. 

The Oxford world about him was full of suggestions of a past 
which very early startled his curiosity and fired his imagination. 
The gossiping tales of an old dame who had seen George III drive 
through the town in a coach and six, were his first lessons in history. 
Year after year he took part with excited fancy in the procession 
of the Magdalen choir boys to the College tower on May Day, to 
sing at the sun-rising a hymn to the Trinity, which had replaced the 
mass chanted in pre-Reformation days, and to " jangle " the bells in 
recognition of an immemorial festival. St. Giles's fair, the " beating 
of the bounds," even the name of " Pennyfarthing Street," were no 
less records of a mysterious past than chapel or college or the very 
trees of Magdalen Walk ; and he once received, breathless and awe- 
struck, a prize from the hands of the centenarian president of the 
college, Dr. Routh, the last man who eA r er wore a wig in Oxford, a 
man who had himself seen Dr. Johnson stand in the High Street 
with one foot on either side of the kennel that ran down the middle 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 147 

of the way, the street boys standing round, " none daring to inter- 
rupt the meditations of the great lexicographer." . . . 

His curiosity soon carried him beyond Oxford ; and in very early 
days he learned to wander on saints' days and holidays to the 
churches of neighboring villages, and there shut himself in to rub 
brasses and study architectural moldings. 

At sixteen he read Gibbon, and from that moment the 
enthusiasm of history took hold of him. 

His first historical efforts were spent on that which lay immedi- 
ately about him ; and the series of papers which he sent at the same 
time to the Oxford Chronicle, on Oxford in the Last Century, are 
instinct with all the vivid imagination of his later work, and tell 
their tale after a method and in a style which was already perfectly 
natural to him. He read enormously, but history was never to him 
wholly a matter of books. The town was still his teacher. ... He 
has left an amusing account of how, on a solemn day which came 
about once in eight years, he marched with mayor and corporation 
round the city boundaries. He lingered over the memory of St. 
Martin's Church, the center of the town life, the folk-mote within 
its walls, the low shed outside where mayor and bailiff administered 
justice, the bell above which rang out its answer to the tocsin of the 
gownsmen in St. Mary's, the butchery and spicery and vintnery 
which clustered round in the narrow streets. " In a walk through 
Oxford one may find illustrations of every period of our annals. 
The cathedral still preserves the memory of the Mercian St. Frides- 
wide ; the tower of the Norman Earls frowns down on the waters 
of the Mill ; around Merton hang the memories of the birth of our 
Constitution; the New Learning and the Eeformation mingle in 
Christ Church; a grind along the Marston road follows the track 
of the army of Fairfax ; the groves of Magdalen preserve the liv- 
ing traditions of the last of the Stuarts." 

And later, when he had left Oxford to enter on the work 
of a curate in one of the poorest parishes of East London, 
Mr. Green still continued his studies. Here he made what 
most men would have thought inconveniences, and even 
obstacles, help him on his way. Touching in 1869 on the 
causes of the unpopularity of English history, he wrote : 



148 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

There is hardly a better corrective for all this to be found than 
to set a man frankly in the streets of a simple English town, and to 
bid him work out the history of the men who have lived and died 
there. The mill by the stream, the tolls of the market place, the 
brasses of its burghers in the church, the names of its streets, the 
lingering memory of its guilds, the mace of its mayor, tell us more 
of the past of England than the spire of Sarum or the martyrdom 
of Canterbury. 

This final extract bears still more closely on the histo- 
rian's need of personal participation in real life, especially 
if he essays the history of a people. 

To the last he looked on his London life as having given him his 
best lessons in history. It was with his church wardens, his school- 
masters, in vestry meetings, in police courts, at boards of guardians, 
in service in chapel or church, in the daily life of the dock-laborer, 
the tradesman, the costermonger, in the summer visitation of chol- 
era, in the winter misery that followed economic changes, that he 
learned what the life of the people meant as perhaps no historian 
had ever learned it before. Every drive, every railway journey, 
every town he passed through in brief excursions for health's sake, 
added something to his knowledge. 

Of course Mr. Green studied historical documents pro- 
foundly, but he never could have used the materials gathered 
by such study as he did use them had it not been for the 
deep insight into the life of the people that he had gained 
by personal experience. 

It must be frankly admitted that there is no city on this 
side of the ocean that can compare with Oxford as a center 
of historical interest. No city of ours has the mediaeval 
architecture, the memorable localities, the venerable cere- 
monies and commemorations, the historical associations 
reaching back a thousand years, the edifices, pictures, and 
monuments that make so much of the interest and charm 
of Oxford. The same may be said of our country as a 
whole. In England you are never out of sight of some 
interesting village, city, or battlefield ; some hall, castle, 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. . 149 

church, or cemetery, college or chapel, famous in history, 
poetry, or song ; some hill, mountain, or heath invested with 
tale or legend ; some spot forever identified with a man re- 
membered in war or statesmanship, letters or patriotism, 
science or religion ; some shrine to which the feet of Eng- 
lish-speaking men turn from all over the world. It is only 
the older parts of our country that can show even a blush 
of interest like this. Faneuil Hall and the State House in 
Philadelphia are invested with associations dear to Ameri- 
cans ; but these associations are too young, even if there 
were no other reasons, to permit these places being equalized 
with Bunnymede and Westminster. Since it is only in in- 
ferior minds that familiarity breeds contempt, the quick- 
minded student can not fail to find advantages in England, 
and in old countries generally, that are denied in a new and 
immature country like our own. It is not due alone to the 
fact that our old States have hitherto held the colleges and 
libraries, the wealth, and the men of leisure, so essential to 
the production of great historical works, that our Bancrofts, 
Irvings, Prescotts, Motleys, and Parkmans have belonged to 
them ; the inspiration and enthusiasm of history belong to 
historical causes.- 

But it must not be supposed that American teachers are 
shut up to books and libraries. Young as our country is, it has 
a history, and every year is adding the charm that only time 
can furnish. We may be poor in legend and in ballad, in 
chronicle and story, in poetry and romance, as compared 
with England, Scotland, or Switzerland ; but we have made 
a beginning, and these rich elements will grow. The an- 
nals of Indian warfare, wmether they relate to the first plant- 
ing of civilization on these Western shores, or to the still 
longer and more fiercely contested struggle by which the 
Great West was wrested from savage men, contain sources of 
interest that Europe can not match ; the leading events of the 
Revolution are fast taking their place with the great events 
that led to the final establishment of liberty in England ; 
while the Civil War, the whole world has already come to 



150 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

see, was necessary to the destruction of slavery and the uni- 
fication of the Eepublic. The extraordinary growth of his- 
torical studies in our country since the War is partly due to 
causes that have operated in other countries ; partly to the 
lessons of the War, which turned us back to its causes and 
the nature and development of political iustitutions ; partly 
to the fact that we now have vastly more history to study, 
and are compelled to read much of the old history in a 
new light. The main fact is that there are numerous 
places, scattered over our land, where the historical spirit 
may feed its fires. These will gain in interest as time goes 
on. Writing of the Virginia side of the Potomac, opposite 
Washington, in 1862, Mr. Hawthorne said : 

The fortifications so numerous in all this region, and now so 
unsightly with their bare precipitous sides, will remain as historic 
monuments, grass-grown and picturesque memorials of an epoch of 
terror and suffering : they will serve to make our country nearer, 
dearer, and more interesting to us, and afford fit soil for poetry to 
root itself in ; for this is a plant which thrives best in spots where 
blood has been spilled long ago, and grows in abundant clusters 
in old ditches, such as the moat around Fort Ellsworth will be a 
century hence. It may seem to be paying dear for what many will 
reckon but a worthless weed ; but the more historical associations 
we can link with our localities, the richer will be the daily life that 
feeds upon the past, and the more valuable the things that have 
been long established.* 

The near past that bounds our view — our very youth — 
has a compensating advantage. Our history lies in the 
open day. The fact that we have few unsolvable problems 
may bluut the edge of curiosity, but it affords a greater 
probability of ascertaining the truth. That our country 
offers to the scholars of the world the only example of a 
large group of independent colonies, planted and developed 
under new and strange conditions, attaining the propor- 
tions of vigorous commonwealths, then asserting their in- 

* The Atlantic Monthly, vol. x, p. 49. 



THE TEACHER'S QUALIFICATIONS. 151 

dependence and forming an indissoluble Union, afterward 
attaining under a free constitution a foremost place among 
the nations of the earth — every step of the whole evolution 
lying in the clear sunlight of knowledge — is a fact which 
"these scholars are sure to appreciate more and more as time 
goes on. Witness the monumental works of Dr. Von Hoist 
and Professor Bryce. 

The value of wide acquaintance with general literature 
to the teacher can not 'well be overestimated. Such ac- 
quaintance not only yields anecdotes, incidents, and tales 
that fail to find their way into formal history, but they 
show us a multitude of facts after they have been touched 
by the imagination of the poet or the novelist. Here are 
inexhaustible materials for illustration. No person could 
properly teach the history of England and Scotland to a 
child, unless he knew something of the old minstrelsy. In 
the same field Scott's novels are indispensable. In our own 
country such materials do not exist in equal abundance, 
owing to our youth ; but Hawthorne, Longfellow, Lowell, 
and Cooper are only less important to the teacher than 
Parkman, Fiske, and Bancroft. 

In the short preface to his compilation of Poems of 
Places, Longfellow writes a paragraph about travel that, 
with slight change in the wording, is just as applicable to 
history. 

I have always found the poets my best traveling companions. 
They see many things that are invisible to common eyes. Like 
Orlando in the forest of Arden, " they hang odes on hawthorns and 
elegies on thistles." They invest the landscape with a human feel- 
ing, and cast upon it 

" The light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream." 
Even scenes unlovely in themselves become clothed in beauty when 
illuminated by the imagination, as faces in themselves not beautiful 
become so by the expression of thought and feeling. 

The most important topic has been reserved to the last— a 
knowledge of history itself, Perhaps there is reason to fear 
12 



152 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

that the normal schools and the institutes are leading- some 
teachers to think that the first requisite is not knowledge, 
but methods. No greater mistake could possibly be made. 
Methods can not be understood until subject-matter has been 
mastered, and, even if they could be, they would prove empty 
and useless. Although it was maintained by both Jacotot 
and Pestalozzi, the most monstrous error in the history of 
pedagogy is the dogma that a man can teach what he does 
not know. Even more than in some other subjects ample 
knowledge is necessary to the best results in this field. 
Without it the insight, the interest, and the enthusiasm so 
necessary to success are impossible. 

It may be thought that the standard of qualification has 
been placed high, at least for teachers in elementary and 
secondary schools. But it is none too high for an ideal. 
The time has gone by when persons having no knowledge 
of auxiliary subjects, or even of the main subject save what 
they have gleaned from the text-book in the hands of their 
own pupils, or a similar one, should be tolerated in schools 
as teachers of history. Moreover, the earnest teacher of 
good abilities can qualify himself in all the subjects that 
have been named, even if his own school preparation did 
not include them. He can not, indeed, provide himself with 
a new mind, but he can accomplish much the same thing 
by stimulating and developing those powers that are more 
directly enlisted in studying and in teaching the subject. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 

References. — Bunbury: History of Ancient Geography; Free- 
man : The Historical Geography of Europe, Text and Maps, Methods 
of Studying History, Geography and Travel, General Sketch of 
History; Dr. W. Smith: Dictionaries of Greek and Roman Geog- 
raphy, and of the Bible; Bryce: The Holy Roman Empire, Appen- 
dix D ; Green : A Short History of the English People, The Making 
of England; Ransome: Elementary History of England; Taylor: 
Names and Places ; Putzger : Historischer Schul-Atlas ; Keith John- 
ston: Physical, Historical, Political, and Descriptive Geography; 
Gardiner : A School Atlas of English History. 

Dr. Freeman observes that geography in its bearing on 
history has two meanings or aspects, which tend to run into 
one another and yet are purely distinct. One aspect is 
knowledge which may be acquired by the study of books 
and maps ; the other, knowledge that is acquired by means 
of travel, by actuaUy seeing things with our own eyes. His- 
torical geography corresponds to the first of these forms of 
knowledge, and has to do with the political divisions of the 
earth at different times. 

" It comes," he says, " very largely to be a matter of no- 
menclature ; what is the meaning of such and such a geo- 
graphical name at such and such a time." Three questions 
may arise : 1. " Did it mean the same extent of the surface of 
the earth which it means now ? " 2. " Did it reach farther 
than it does now, or not so far?" 3. u Or did it, as some- 
times happens, mean some other part of the earth from what 
it means now — some part which may not have an inch of 



154 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

ground in common with the land to which the name is now 
commonly given ? " Questions also arise as to the original 
meanings of names. Accordingly, he defines historical ge- 
ography as the knowledge of the names which different 
parts of the earth's surface have borne at different times, in- 
cluding their origin and signification. How important 
accurate knowledge of this kind is, as well as how diffi- 
cult to obtain, this chapter and the following one will illus- 
trate. 

First, we may consider the three continents of the Old 
World and their names. Necessarily, the names could not 
be used in a -continental signification until the distinctness 
of the continents themselves was recognized ; and this, for 
reasons that are here immaterial, was but slowly effected. 

While Homer was acquainted with parts of all these con- 
tinents, he had no idea of their distinctness and unity ; and 
even Herodotus, who uses the divisions and the names, be- 
cause they were sanctioned by custom, thought them un- 
reasonable and without good foundation. Sometimes the 
Nile was regarded as the boundary between Asia and Africa. 
Nor was there in antiquity any universally recognized 
boundary between Asia and Europe. The majority fol- 
lowed Hecatseus in making it the Tanais, or the Don, but 
some followed Herodotus, who made it the Phasis, now 
known as the Faz or Bioni. Even in our own times this 
boundary is not fixed beyond dispute, some geographers 
making it the Don and some the Volga. But the different 
senses attributed to the names arising from special uses and 
from limited information are far more confusing than those 
originating in disputes about boundaries. Every one of the 
three names appears to have been used first in a merely lo- 
cal sense, and afterward to have been expanded with the 
progress of geographical knowledge. 

Asia is used in history in several distinct senses. It is 
probable that the first Asia was the plain of Lydia, or possi- 
bly even the meadow of the river Cayster, and that it was 
successively applied to the whole peninsula of which Lydia 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 155 

formed a part, to the parts of the continent abutting on the 
Mediterranean, and finally to the continent. The name Asia 
Minor first appears in the fifth century a. d., and its appear- 
ance marks the need of a special name for the peninsula, in 
order to separate it from the continent, or from Upper Asia, 
as the region beyond the Taurus was called. Asia is some- 
times named the kingdom of Troy, sometimes the kingdom 
of Pergamus, and sometimes Proconsular or Roman Asia, 
How confusing these Asias are is shown by familiar pas- 
sages in the book of Acts. St. Paul, being already in Asia, 
and in Asia Minor, is forbidden "to preach the word in 
Asia," and at Ephesus is advised by " certain of the chief of 
Asia, which were his friends," etc. (chaps, xvi, 6 ; xix, 31). 
The Asia of these passages is the one last mentioned in the 
above enumeration. 

The Greeks called the second of the great continents, ex- 
clusive of Egypt, Libya, and the Romans borrowed the 
name from them. The Carthaginians called their own re- 
gion, and perhaps the continent so far as they knew it, Af ric 
or Af ricus, and the name passed from them to their conquer- 
ors. The Romans at first applied it to the Carthaginian 
territory, and later to Proconsular or Roman Africa, which 
was of different extents at different times. Still later 
Africa took the place of Libya, including Egypt as well, 
while Libya disappeared from the map. 

Perhaps the name of the third continent is of more un- 
certain origin than either of the others. One theory is that 
Europe means " Broad Land," and that the Asiatic Greeks 
gave the name to the extended coast of Thrace to distinguish 
it from the islands of the iEgean Sea and the Peloponnesus. 
However this may be, the name was used in a continental 
sense from the time that the geographical unity of Europe 
was recognized, and is therefore free from uncertainties like 
those attending Asia and Africa. 

Before going farther it will be well to distinguish be- 
tween geographical and political names. Dr. Freeman de- 
fines the first as " a name meaning a certain part of the 



156 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

earth's surface, marked out by boundaries which can not 
well be changed" ; the second as "simply meaning the ex- 
tent of country which is occupied at any time by a particu- 
lar nation, and whose boundaries may be easily changed." 
Britain is an example of a geographical name; England, 
Wales, and Scotland are examples of political names. Spain 
falls into the first class ; Castile, Aragon, and Portugal into 
the second. The same may be said of Gaul and France. 
Sometimes the same name is both geographical and polit- 
ical, and in precisely the same sense ; but such cases are less 
frequent than we might antecedently expect. 

Few names are more curious and instructive than Greece 
and Greek. The people whom we know as Greeks called 
themselves Hellenes, and their country Hellas. At first 
the Hellenes were but a single tribe occupying a small dis- 
trict in Thessaly. The southern part of the easternmost 
of the three Mediterranean peninsulas was, however, occu- 
pied by a group of affiliated tribes or peoples. It was always 
understood that Hellas was the country of the Hellenes ; 
and as the original tribes and states came more and more 
to recognize and to value their relationships, and as they be- 
came better known to the outside world, the names Hellenes 
and Hellas were progressively expanded. The geographical 
unity of the country, as well as the commercial and political 
relations of the people, worked strongly in the direction 
of unity. At one time Hellas extended only to the Co- 
rinthian Gulf on the south and to the Ambracian Gulf on 
the north ; later, Peloponnesus and Macedonia were included 
within its boundaries. Nor is this all ; the Hellenes were a 
commercial and a colonizing people, and, in the largest 
sense of the term, all their colonies and outposts were in 
Hellas, whether on the Hellespont, the Euxine, or African 
coast, whether in Spain, Gaul, Italy, or the Islands of 
the Sea. Still, the two names were not employed in a gen- 
eral sense until after the time of Homer ; he calls the 
motley host that sailed to Troy by a number of different 
names, but never Hellenes. Even after the names became 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 157 

common there were numerous controversies as to what 
tribes were and what were not Hellenes. These controver- 
sies, into which political factors entered very deeply, make 
the definition of the Grecian boundaries at all times difficult. 
Finally the Romans became acquainted with a small tribe 
called Graeci, living on the coast of Epirus, who were per- 
haps not Hellenes at all, and they gave the name of this 
tribe to the whole country and people of the peninsula, thus 
settling the usage. While Greece was never used in as 
broad a sense as Hellas, lower Italy, which became thor- 
oughly Grsecized, was known as Greater Greece. The pres- 
ent kingdom of Greece, still called Hellas, founded in 1833, 
embraces but a small part of ancient Greece. 

We first meet the name Italy in the lower part of the 
second Mediterranean peninsula. The Romans, the master- 
ful people who expanded the name, although of the Italian 
stock, did not live in the original Italy at all. In the time 
of Julius Caesar Italy extended north only to the Rubicon, 
and it was Augustas who first made it include the valley of 
the Po and the southern slopes of the Alps. At a later time 
the name was limited to the northern part of the peninsula, 
and Milan became the capital. On the breaking up of the 
Frankish Empire a kingdom of Italy was formed in the 
north, Charles V being the last monarch to wear its iron 
crown, and a second but short-lived kingdom of the same 
name was created by Bonaparte in 1805. For a long time 
the name was without political significance, being, as was 
said, "a mere geographical designation." Such, in fact, 
it continued to be until the formation of the present king- 
dom of Italy, which, however, does not include the whole 
peninsula or all the Italians. To say nothing of San Marino, 
considerable parts of Italy still belong to Austria. The 
necessity of keeping the meaning of names in mind in 
reading history is well illustrated by the account of Caesar's 
passing the Rubicon with his army in defiance of the Senate. 
This river, which flows into the Adriatic south of the Po 
valley, was part of the boundary between the province of 



158 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Gaul, which Caesar governed, and the Italy of his day, which 
the Senate itself governed. 

The original Romans were the people of Rome, the town 
by the river Tiber ; but step by step the name as well as 
the rights of the Romans were conferred upon all the tribes 
and nationalities comprehended in the most imposing polit- 
ical structure that the world has seen — the Roman Empire. 
After the division of the empire, Roman was never used in 
the West as a general name either of the land or of the peo- 
ple, although it lived on as a part of the name of the empire 
itself. Nor is the name used in Italy to-day save as applying 
to the city and to the district called the Romagna ; but in 
the East its use with a general significance took deep root. 
The inhabitants of the Eastern Empire knew themselves as 
Romans to the very end, and the land gradually came to 
be called Roumania. The potent name made a deep im- 
pression upon the Asiatic barbarians who overthrew that 
empire ; when the Seljook Turks overran Asia Minor their 
leaders assumed the title Sultans of Roum. Roumania and 
Roumelia, inhabited mainly by people who speak a language 
descended from the Latin, and who are themselves supposed 
to be descended from the colonists whom Trajan established 
in Dacia, are memorials of the strong impression that the 
Roman power and name made upon the East. Strangely 
enough, the name of a people whose great qualities were 
political and military is now most widely used in a strictly 
religious signification. 

In the widest sense Gaul was the land of the Gauls, or 
Celts, as Hellas was the land of the Hellenes. In early Ro- 
man times, however, the name was used in a much narrower 
sense. The country so named was divided into Cisalpine 
and Transalpine Gaul — or Gaul on this side and Gaul on 
that side of the Alps, speaking from the standpoint of 
Rome. The first was incorporated into Italy by Augustus. 
The Gaul that Caesar describes as divided into three parts, 
much of which he conquered, extended from the Pyre- 
nees, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean to the Channel 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 159 

and the North Sea, exclusive of Provence, which had been 
subdued in earlier times. This country is the Gaul of the 
Imperial Period. 

When we obtain our first glimpse of Central Europe it is 
occupied by a group of affiliated nations or tribes calling 
themselves Deutsch — that is, the people or the nation, and 
whose descendants, living in the same country, still call 
themselves by the same name. The derivative "Dutch," 
however, is strictly limited to the people of the Netherlands. 
English-speaking men call the Deutsch Germans and Teu- 
tons, and their country Germany, borrowing the names 
from the Eomans. Where the Romans obtained them is 
a matter of controversy, but Teuton was the name of a 
Germanic tribe with which the Eomans were brought into 
contact, and which they used in a generic sense. Broadly 
speaking, Germany, or Deutschland, is the native country 
of the Germans, or the Deutsch ; but its ethnological, geo- 
graphical, and political limits have materially varied at dif- 
ferent times, and, in fact the three significations of the word 
have never fully coincided, at least in modern times. The 
pi'incipal political phases of Germany may be thus particu- 
larized : 

1. The Germany of Caesar and Tacitus, consisting of a 
large number of independent tribes and groups of tribes 
without cohesion or unity. In this period the Germans 
are crowding outward, and they soon overflow in all direc- 
tions. 

2. Carolingian Germany, the empire of the Carlings. 
The Franks, who were one of the largest divisions of the 
Germans, crossed the Rhine in the fifth century, under Clo- 
vis, and established themselves in Gaul. Their power cul- 
minated when Charlemagne, their king, having gained the 
mastery of nearly all Gaul and part of Spain, of Germany 
and Northern Italy, was crowned Emperor at Rome. Fran- 
cia, which in this period was the proper country of the 
Franks, embraced the major parts of Gaul and Germany. 

3. The German kingdom. Soon after the death of 



160 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Charlemagne, which, occurred in 814, his empire broke up. 
East Francia, the country between the Rhine and the Elbe, 
and West Francia now fell apart and were never reunited. 
In East Francia there grew up the German kingdom, the 
real greatness of which dates from Otto the Great, crowned 
in 936. This kingdom, called also the German Empire, 
passed through many changes and stood in important rela- 
tions to all the powers of Western Europe. The German kings 
wore, or were entitled to wear, four crowns — the royal crowns 
of Germany, Burgundy, and Italy, and the imperial crown of 
Rome. Charles V was the last monarch who was actually 
crowned Roman Emperor. The kingdom was a confederacy, 
the head of which was originally elected by the German 
princes collectively, but afterward by a certain fixed number 
of them, called electors. Still, the crown tended to become 
hereditary in some great reigning family that could bring to 
the office strength in exchange for dignity and a great title. 
It must be remembered, however, that Burgundy and Italy 
were not parts of Germany, but were rather foreign domin- 
ioDS of the German kings until they fell away from his 
grasp. The Empire, and the German kingdom, came to an 
end in 1806 in consequence of the Napoleonic wars. Francis 
II then renounced the imperial crown and assumed the new 
title of Emperor of Austria. 

Here it may be observed that European history, and es- 
pecially in mediaeval times, can not be understood without a 
clear and firm grasp of the Holy Roman Empire, the name 
by which the imperial dominions of the kings or emperors 
were known. Often, however, it was called merely The 
Empire. 

4. The German Confederation. This was a loose federal 
union formed of all the proper German states in 1815. The 
kings of England, the Netherlands, and Denmark were 
members of the body for their German dominions, as the 
King of England for Hanover. The Emperor of Austria 
was the hereditary president of the diet, representation in 
which was regulated by fixed agreement. Austria and 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 161 

Prussia were the leading members of the confederacy, and 
their rivalry finally destroyed it. 

5. The German Empire. In 1866 the German Confedera- 
tion came to an end, and the North German Confederation 
was formed under the leadership of Prussia. Austria and 
the other South German states were not included. In 1870, 
when the Franco-Prussian war was in progress, all these 
excluded states but Austria joined the Northern Union, and 
the next year the present German Empire was organized, 
the crown being invested in the reigning family of Prussia. 
Some of the old states were now merged in Prussia; the 
old German lands of Alsace and Lorraine, that had been 
wrested from France in the course of the war, were rean- 
nexed to Germany, and Austria, with a German population 
of more than ten million, was shut out of political Ger- 
many altogether. 

Perhaps no name in European history is more confusing 
than Austria. Austria-Hungary is composed, as the name 
itself suggests, of two parts, each of which is an agglomera- 
tion of older states and parts of states. Hungary consists of 
the old Hungarian kingdom together with other lands, and 
does not require further description. Austria dates from the 
time of the early German kings, who founded, as a bulwark 
against the Hungarians, a mark, march, or border state, 
called Oesterreich, Ostmark, Eastmark, or Austria. By and 
by the mark became a duchy, then an archduchy, and to- 
ward the end of the thirteenth century it passed into the 
possession of the house of Hapsburg. In one way and 
another the Austrian princes won power ; the imperial 
crown came to them ; they gained new territories in Ger- 
many, in Italy, in Poland, in Hungarian and Turkish lands 
— not all of which, however, ever became parts of Austria 
proper. They were known by a great number of titles : in 
their original dominions as archdukes ; in Bohemia and 
Hungary as kings ; in their other states as counts, dukes, 
margraves, etc. ; while in Germany at large and through 
Europe they were styled Emperors. The head of this com- 



162 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

posite state assumed the title Emperor of Austria when he 
renounced the imperial crown in 1806. He is now known 
as emperor in Austria and in Europe generally, but as king 
in Hungary — a point on which the Hungarians are very 
sensitive. Austria proper consists of fourteen different 
parts, eleven of which belonged to Germany previous to 
1866. 

The original Prussia, a province on the Baltic Sea that 
the Teutonic Knights had won from the heathen, was not 
German at all. In the sixteenth century it passed to the 
Elector of Brandenburg, one of the seven electors of the 
German kingdom, and in 1701 the Elector assumed the title 
King of Prussia. His kingdom lay partly within and partly 
without Germany. As a German prince he was called an 
elector, but as a European prince he was known by his 
higher title. Step by step Prussia has grown in all direc- 
tions, until it is now far larger than any other German 
state. At present Prussia is all included in Germany, al- 
though a considerable part of the population, as the Poles 
and the Pomeranians, are not Germans. 

Reference has been made to the division of Francia in 
the ninth century. The old name was reserved in both 
divisions ; in the west it became France, in the east Fran- 
conia. Western Francia, or Latin Francia, which corre- 
sponded in a general way to ancient Gaul, following the 
breaking up of Charlemagne's empire, was divided into a 
great number of small political bodies, which, like all such 
bodies at that time, were endowed with the strongest repel- 
lent qualities. These bodies were not only without natural 
boundaries for the most part, but they were all divisions of a 
great region or country that was strongly marked by geo- 
graphical unity and coherence. The Alps and the Medi- 
terranean, the Pyrenees, the Atlantic, and the Channel wall 
this region about, save in one quarter. On the northeast, or 
the side of the Rhine, it lies open, thus affording a high- 
way of war that armies have often trodden. In course of 
time the political and military elements existing in the tenth 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 163 

century were brought tog-ether and thoroughly integrated, 
producing modern France. It is common to assign this 
great and beneficial work to the skill and policy of Hugh 
Capet and his successors, re-enforced by the great qualities 
of their people ; but the material factors in the problem 
are no less potent than the human ones. Moreover, beyond 
the limits that Nature set for her, France, although one of 
the great military powers of history, has never succeeded in 
permanently extending her boundaries. Nor has she at any 
time been threatened with serious loss within these limits. 
Only on her one open side have her boundaries been un- 
stable. 

Spain is a country of a strongly marked character, both 
geographical and historical. Minutely to set forth the po- 
litical changes that have taken place within it would require 
a volume. Only two or three facts can here be mentioned. 

In the eighth century the Saracens conquered the larger 
part of Spain ; the mountainous north, however, preserved its 
independence under a line of princes claiming to represent 
the old Gothic kings, and in time it became the Kingdom of 
Leon. This kingdom was the original center of resistance 
to the Mohammedans. Progressively, as the country was 
won back bit by bit from its conquerors, there grew up a 
circle of counties and kingdoms the relation of which to 
one another and to Leon are curiously blended and con- 
fused. The most prominent of these were Navarre, which 
extended over the Pyrenees, Aragon, Portugal, and Castile 
— the last so called because at first it was a line of castles. 
Modern Spain was the product of the integration of nearly 
aH these states. To quote Dr. Freeman: a The permanent 
union of the dominions of Castile and Aragon, the tempo- 
rary union of the dominions of Castile, Aragon, and Por- 
tugal, formed that great Spanish monarchy which in the 
sixteenth century was the wonder and terror of Europe, 
which lost important possessions in the sixteenth and sev- 
enteenth centuries, and which was finally partitioned in 
the beginning of the eighteenth." Castile and Aragon, 



164: HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

which had previously absorbed much Christian territory in 
the peninsula, gave the finishing- blow to the Moorish power 
the very year that Columbus discovered America. The 
marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella did not immediately 
lead to the unification of the two crowns ; it is common to 
refer the union to 1506, but it did not become complete and 
final until the reign of Charles V. The union of Portugal 
with the other kingdoms proved to be but temporary. The 
potency of physical factors is happily illustrated by the fact 
that so much of the old Navarre as lies north of the Pyre- 
nees is now a part of France, while the remainder is a part of 
Spain. 

It has been seen that the ethnological, geographical, and 
political meanings of the same name often differ widely. It 
is perhaps hardly necessary to remark that no student can 
disentangle and retain in his memory these distinctions un- 
less he is willing to read closely, to scan maps carefully, and 
to do a great deal of hard thinking besides. It is also neces- 
sary that the student shall emancipate himself from the 
bondage of the modern map ; he must live in the geography 
of the times that he studies. 

Many other examples of the shrinkage, the expansion, the 
disappearance, and the transference of geographical names 
can be found in the history of Europe. The fact is, every 
important name is a separate study. How Saxony, Sweden, 
and Turkey have shrunk up ! How Russia has grown ! 
Through what transformations Switzerland has passed! 
Spain, which was originally a geographical name merely, is 
now a political name as well. Burgundy and Poland, once 
so prominent, have wholly disappeared from the map. In- 
deed, Mr. Bryce describes ten different Burgundies, and 
then adds that there was very nearly being an eleventh 
one. 

Dr. Freeman remarks with emphasis, that although Caesar 
in 55 B. c, and William the Conqueror in 1066 A. D., both 
landed in the same island, the first landed in Britain, the 
second in England. The distinction is important, because 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 165 

the two names suggest very different conditions, and par- 
ticularly very different peoples. 

The people of the Mediterranean who first visited those 
regions appear to have spoken of the whole group of islands 
rather than of any particular island as Britain. Still, be- 
fore Caesar's day the name had been applied also to the 
largest island of the group, while its inhabitants, who were 
Celts, were called Britons. The Roman conquest and occu- 
pancy in no way disturbed these names. Soon after the 
Romans retired beyond the Channel, in 410, bands of Jutes, 
Saxons, and Angles began to invade Britain ; and step by 
step these invaders, constantly re-enforced from beyond the 
sea, succeeded in displacing the native inhabitants in a 
large part of the island. The Britons already had some 
knowledge of the Saxons, and that is probably the reason 
why they called the invading host indiscriminately by that 
name. At all events, they did call them all Saxons, and to 
this day their descendants in Wales, Ireland, and the Scotch 
Highlands call the English by some form of that word. 
But the new people that was gradually formed in Britain 
called themselves Angles or English, and the country An- 
glia or England, perhaps because that tribe was more numer- 
ous and came to possess more of the land than the others. 
Still, England never took the place of Britain as a name, for 
reasons which it is important to state, 

The Romans found a people known as the Caledonians 
in Northern Britain. They were of the Celtic stock. By 
and by the Picts appear on the scene, they being the same 
tribe with a new name, or an affiliated tribe who displace or 
absorb the Caledonians. Glancing at the contemporary map 
of Ireland, we see that its northern part is called Scotia and 
its inhabitants Scotti. Thus the original Scotland was North 
Ireland, and the original Scotchmen were Irishmen. Before 
the German invasion of Britain began some Scots had 
crossed the sea and planted themselves on the coast north of 
the Clyde. These Scots, continually re-enforced by their 
countrymen in the lesser island, made common cause with 



166 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

the Picts in warring upon the Britons after the Eomans 
abandoned the island, and also in resisting the Saxons or 
English as they pressed northward. Moreover, they eventu- 
ally gave their name to the Picts, as well as to many of the 
English themselves and to the whole northern part of an- 
cient Britain. The first Nova Scotia was Scotland. 

Step by step the English pushed their conquests north- 
ward as far as the Highlands, and they actually occupied 
permanently a great part of the Scottish Lowlands. But 
the English kings failed to maintain a high northern bound- 
ary ; on the contrary, there was formed a Kingdom of Scot- 
land, the people of which were partly the old Caledonians, 
or the Pictish stock, partly the Scots, and partly the Lowland 
English that finally made common cause with the others. 
Thus the northern as well as the southern kingdom is 
known by a foreign name. Caledonia disappeared from the 
map of the one island as Scotia did from the map of the 
other. On the perfecting of the union of the kingdoms of 
England and Wales and of Scotland in 1707, it was ordained 
that together they should be called Great Britain. And this 
fact the Scotchman, who is particular to have it understood 
that his country was never conquered, is strenuous to have 
remembered. The native name of the Highlander is Gael. 

The diverse elements uniting to form the Scottish nation 
had much to do with the long and bitter feuds between the 
Highlands and the Lowlands. Sir Walter Scott has made 
the most of these contentions, as in the speech that Roderick 
Dhu makes to Fitz James as the two stand upon one of the 
mountain spurs overlooking the valley of the Forth. This 
speech emphasizes the fact that the Highlander and the 
Lowlander were of alien race, and also illustrates the High- 
land or Gaelic use of the term Saxon. 

Saxon, from yonder mountain high, 
I mark'd thee send delighted eye, 
Far to the south and east, where lay, 
Extended in succession gay, 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 107 

Deep waving fields and pastures green, 
With gentle slopes and groves between : — 
These fertile plains, that soften'd vale, 
Were once the birthright of the Gael ; 
The stranger came with iron hand, 
And from our fathers reft the land. 
Where dwell we now ! See, rudely swell 
Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell. 

The contrast presented by men occupying mountainous re- 
gions and by men occupying plains or valleys Las often been 
remarked. It is particularly observable in the early history 
of civilization. The man of the mountains retains his primi- 
tive habits of character long after his neighbor on the plain 
below has entered upon the ways of regular civil life ; he 
continues to live by the chase, on the produce of his few goats 
or sheep, and perhaps a meager tillage, to raid and murder, 
and to assert his independence in all ways, when his neigh- 
bor has become an agriculturist, a mechanic, or a trader en- 
gaged in amassing and emjoying wealth, and takes up his 
old trade of war only when compelled to do so in self-de- 
fense. This story may be read in the relations of the Scotch 
Highlanders and Lowlanders down to recent times. The 
mind of the mountaineer continues stern and unbending, 
his spirit fierce and intractable, brooking no domination, 
when the Lowlander becomes plastic, versatile, devoted to 
gain or comfort, and loving quiet and peace even to the 
point of submitting to severe oppression. Thus mountain- 
ous regions not only furnish those who dwell in them fast- 
nesses easy of defense, but they breathe into their inhabitants 
an intense spirit of individuality and freedom that some- 
times renders them invincible. A few thousand Monte- 
negrins withstood for centuries the Ottoman Empire ; and 
the Swiss, although comparatively few in numbers, and 
divided by blood, language, and local interests, successfully 
maintained their independence against some of the greatest 
powers of Europe. Still _the men of the plain have not al- 
ways tamely submitted to the voke of the oppressor. Mr. 
13 



1G8 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Kingsley has signalized in an engaging story the stubborn 
resistance that the men of the Fens under Hereward the 
Wake made to William the Conqueror ; while Mr. Motley 
has celebrated in learned tomes of history the heroic and 
successful resistance that the Dutch made to Spain. 

Environment tells us why some countries are so subject 
to foreign invasion. For thousands of years invaders from 
beyond the central mountain axis of Asia have at times 
pressed into the great peninsula of Hindostan, seeking its 
milder climate and its richer fruits. The modern tourist 
who passes in a day from France or Germany into Italy is 
at no loss to discover w T hy in ancient times the Celt, the 
Teuton, and the Hun longed for its beautiful mountains and 
valleys, and why in later times it has been so fiercely con- 
tested by the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the German, and 
even the Saracen. Then, some countries by their very posi- 
tion and configuration are battlefields of nations or high- 
ways of war. Such in ancient times was Palestine, often 
trodden under foot by the colossal powers of Egypt, Assyria, 
and Syria. Northern Italy has been a favorite battle ground 
for countries lying beyond the Alps, while Flanders, Dr. 
Holmes once said, is the bowling alley in which the kings of 
Europe have rolled cannon balls at each other's armies. 
The records of such movements and operations are often 
read in historical geography. 

The English called the Britons Welsh— that is, strangers ; 
and there were two or three Welsh kingdoms in the west- 
ern parts of the island that maintained their independence 
through several centuries, and that, when finally subdued, 
left behind them enduring memorials. Cornwall is the old 
kingdom of Corn- Wales, or kingdom of the Welsh of the 
Horn (Corn being derived from the Latin, cornea); while 
the Principality of Wales is the Welsh kingdom that Ed- 
ward I subdued, and that gave a title to the eldest son of the 
King of England. Still, the people of the Principality do 
not call themselves Welsh, but Cimri. 

So far little has been said about the origin and meaning 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 169 

of geographical names. Dr. Freeman includes these ele- 
ments in his definition of historical geography, and Rev. 
Isaac Taylor writes a hook to show us that local names, 
whether of provinces, cities, villages, rivers, or mountains, 
are never purely arbitrary sounds destitute of meaning, but 
are rather records of the past, inviting and rewarding a care- 
ful historical interpretation. Sometimes the original mean- 
ings have faded out ; sometimes they are so doubtful that 
we can not deduce from them certain conclusions ; but in a 
majority of cases they are not only discoverable but throw 
much light on historical studies. Geographical names are 
sometimes chapters of history in themselves. The numerous 
Alexandrias, Antiochs, and Seleucias scattered over the Mace- 
donian Empire point at once to their founders or to the men 
for whom they were named. The same may be said of the 
various Caesareas, of which Jersey is but a corruption. The 
cities of Adrianople and Orleans remind us of the Emperors 
Adrian and Aurelian. Tiberias stands for the emperor of 
that name, and Constance for Constantius. Philippi was the 
city of Philip, and our own Philadelphia goes back by the 
city of the same name in Asia Minor to Philadelphus, King 
of Pergamus. The three names of the great city of the 
Bosporus — Byzantium, Constantinople, ancT Stamboul — fitly 
mark the three periods of its eventful history. St. Peters- 
burg is the City of Peter the Great. But such examples as 
these lie on the surface. 

Historical geography shows very conclusively that, at 
different times, several different peoples have flowed over 
the major part of Europe, and it also marks in a more or 
less definite way their metes and bounds, just as an existing 
moraine marks the former extent of an ancient glacier. 
First of all, so far as we know, came the race of which the 
Basques and Finns are remnants ; and then followed suc- 
cessive waves of Celts, Germans, Lithuanians, and Slavo- 
nians, that have left incontestable proof of their presence in 
geographical names wherever they went. Celtic names 
abound in the region west of the Rhine, in Italy, and in the 



170 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

British islands, and are found beyond these limits. Ger- 
man names are scattered over the western half of Europe. 
In fact, some of these countries are sown with names in 
different languages three or four deep, and it is often easy 
to discover the order in which they are scattered. In Italy, 
Greek, Latin, Celtic, and German names are found, not to 
mention still other languages ; in France, Celtic, Latin, and 
German names. In the eighth century the Arabs crossed 
the Strait of Gibraltar and founded a kingdom in Spain; 
they also invaded Gaul, the Mediterranean islands, and 
Southern Italy ; and wherever they went they left behind 
them demonstrative proof of their presence, even if their 
name should fade from the annals of Europe. In Spain 
and Portugal, where they remained longest, the memorials 
of their presence are thousands io number, including many 
of the best-known names, as Guadalquivir, Gibraltar, Medi- 
na, and Trafalgar. At a still earlier time the Phoenicians 
had given a name to Cadiz. 

In Great Britain historical geography shows us the plain- 
est traces of the three races that have ruled the island — the 
Celts, the Romans, and the English — and also of the inva- 
sions of the Scandinavians and the Normans. 

Names given*to features of country are naturally more 
permanent than names of towns and political divisions. 
k ' Mountains and rivers," it has been said, " still murmur the 
voices of nations long since denationalized or extirpated." 
To quote Mr. Taylor : " The river names, more particularly 
the names of important rivers, are everywhere the memo- 
rials of the very earliest races. These river names survive 
when all other names have changed ; they seem to possess an 
almost indestructible vitality. Towns may be destroyed, the 
sites of human habitations may be removed, but the ancient 
river names are handed down from race to race ; even the 
names of the eternal hills are less permanent than those of 
rivers. Over the greater part of Europe — in Germany, 
France, Italy, Spain — we find villages which bear Teutonic 
or Romance names, standing on the banks of streams which 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 171 

still retain their ancient Celtic appellations. Throughout 
the whole of England there is hardly a single river name 
which is not Celtic." The same author prints a map that 
shows the most thoroughly Saxon and Scandinavian parts 
of Great Britain to he traversed by rivers whose names are 
now almost the sole evidence of a once universal Celtic oc- 
cupation. Often the Celtic name was simply a word that 
meant water, stream, or river, and so was a common noun, as 
afo?i, meaning river, and dur and esJc, meaning water. The 
Saxons also named streams in the same way. Frequently 
the present name is composed of two or more root words. 
Thus the Teutons, coming to a stream already called Dur or 
Door, added "beck," making Durbeck, which means water- 
stream. Esk-water and Derwent- water were formed in the 
same way. Wan sbeck water is composed of four parts, and 
means riverwater-riverwater. 

Chester is the Latin castra, meaning camp, and the 
name bears witness to the fact that the city stands on the 
site of an old Roman fortification. The same may be said 
of names holding the same word in combination, as Dor- 
chester, Rochester, Porchester, Manchester, Doncaster, and 
many more. Cologne, or Koln, as the German says, is a 
corrupted form of the Latin colonia, and shows us that the 
Romans had a colony on the site of that city ; while Coblenz 
comes from the Latin confluent es, and points to the fact that 
the Romans also occupied the confluence of the Rhine and 
the Moselle. The syllable " coin " in English Lincoln has 
the same origin as Cologne. 

It is interesting to observe that Cologne is by no means 
a solitary example of a double name occurring in that re- 
gion of Europe. We have Elsass and Alsace, Lothringen and 
Lorraine, Mosel and Moselle, Mainz and Mayence, Trier and 
Treves, Liittich and Liege, Mechlin and Malines, Lowen and 
Louvain, Aachen and Aix-la-Chapelle, and many more. 
The first name in the several pairs is the older German 
name, the second one the later French name. The expla- 
nation of these double names is partly the fact that the 



172 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

French have a fashion of adapting names to their own lan- 
guage, and that other peoples, as the English, owing to the 
general currency of French, commonly adopt these newer 
forms ; but it is also partly the fact that this region has been 
a debatable land between Germany and France, at different 
times in the possession of either people, and so furnishes a 
valuable lesson in historical geography. 

In England a multitude of names are found that suggest 
the idea of an inclosure, and so of protection. The familiar 
terminations " ton," '-' ham," " worth," " stoke," " fold," 
''garth," "park," "burgh," "bury," "borough," "borrow," 
all have this meaning. These terminations were added to 
some other word, as the name of a tribe or family, and in this 
way were formed many of our most familiar geographical 
names. The original bond of the Saxon community was 
blood relationship. "As they fought side by side on the 
field," says Mr. Green, " so they dwelt side by side on the soil. 
Harliog abode by Harling, and Billing by Billing, and each 
' wick ' and ' ham ' and ' stead ' and ' ton ' took its name from 
the kinsmen who dwelt in it. In this way the house or ham 
of the Billings was Billingham, and the town or township of 
the Harlings was Harlington." The fact that most of the 
old centers of population, as London, Winchester, Manches- 
ter, Lancaster, and others, bear Celtic or Latin-Celtic names, 
while other centers bear Teutonic names, suggests that it 
was in the first that the Celts longest maintained themselves 
against their enemies ; " while the Teutonic town names 
usually indicate by their suffixes that they originated in iso- 
lated family settlements in the uncleared forest, or arose 
from the necessities of traffic in the neighborhood of some 
frequented ford." 

The Scandinavians, who played such an important part 
in English history, would naturally land on the northeast- 
ern coast, since it was most convenient to their own coun- 
try ; and the multitude of Scandinavian names found in 
that part of the island, separate from all documents, proves 
that such was the fact. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE OLD WORLD. 173 

The names of many English counties are full of instruc- 
tion. Essex, Sussex, Wessex, and Middlesex were first the 
names respectively of the kingdoms of the East, South, West, 
and Middle Saxons, before the Teutonic kingdoms were 
united. Surrey was the south realm. Norfolk and Suffolk 
were the northern and southern divisions of the East Angli- 
can folk. Northumberland is the land north of the Hum- 
ber. Cumberland, Cornwall, Devon, and Kent are the 
names of Celtic tribes. 

Such are a few of the many lessons that we read in the 
geographical names of the Old World. We shall now study 
some of the similar lessons written on the map of the New 
World. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. t 

References. — 1. Discovery and early Exploration.— Bancroft's, 
Hildreth's, and Bryant and Gay's Histories; Winsor: Narrative and 
Critical History of America (II., III., IV.), Christopher Columbus 
(IX.-XIX., Appendix, The Geographical Results) ; Fiske : The Dis- 
covery of America (V., VI., VII., XII.); Scaife: America, Its Geo- 
graphical History, 1492-1892 ; Parkman : The Pioneers of France 
in the New World. 

2. Interior and Western Exploration.— Winsor, as above ; Park- 
man : Series entitled France and England in North America ; J. D. 
Whitney : The United States (Appendix, A, B). 

3. Maps.— MacCoun : The Historical Geography of the United 
States, Historical Charts of the United States ; Hart : The Epoch 
Maps ; also the maps in Winsor. 

4. Miscellaneous. — Lodge : A Short History of the English Colo- 
nies ; Poore : The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, 
etc. ; Taylor : Names and Places ; Coxe : The Forum, IV, 67 (Amer- 
ican Geographical Names); Redway: Manual of Geography; C. 
Blackie : Etymological Geography. 

In some respects the historical geography of the New 
World is even more interesting than that of the Old. 
It abounds in examples of the enlargement, the shrinking 
up, the transference, and the disappearance of names. It 
presents to us aboriginal names in competition with names 
given by discoverers and explorers, and names of the second 
class in competition with one another. We meet a multi- 
tude of names brought over from Europe. What is more, 
the whole process goes on in the open light of history— as it 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 175 

were, under our own eyes — a fact that often makes the les- 
son more definite and precise. 

The first lesson that we read in the historical geography 
of the New World is the history of a great man's blunder. 
When Columbus sailed from Palos on his first voyage of 
discovery, he expected to land in Cathay, or China, which 
had been made known to the people of Europe by Marco 
Polo and other travelers. Strong as was his belief that he 
should make such a landfall, he found nothing in the 
islands which he discovered corresponding to the glowing 
accounts of Cathay that he had received. Hence he con- 
cluded that he had come upon some of the islands that Mar- 
co had described as lying off the eastern coast of Asia, and 
so that he was within the magic circle of India. For ex- 
ample, he identified Hayti as Cipango, or Japan. He there- 
fore reported on his return to Spain that he had found the 
Indias, and, of course, the Indians. In his three subsequent 
voyages he interpreted everything that he discovered in the 
light of his original prepossession. He believed that Cuba 
and the South American coast were parts of the mainland 
of Asia ; and although he was twice on the shore of the 
new continent, and followed it for some distance in both in- 
stances, he never entertained the idea that he had found a 
new world. He said, not long before his death, that if any 
man did not give him credit for having discovered the re- 
maining parts of Asia, it must spring from personal hostil- 
ity. His report was implicitly accepted by the Spanish 
Government, which proceeded in due time to organize the 
famous Council for the Indies. The example that the Span- 
iards thus set was generally followed. Columbus's geo- 
graphical errors were in due time corrected, but the correc- 
tion did not prevent the names Indies and Indians from at- 
taching themselves firmly to the New World. The islands 
among which he made his first discoveries are still known 
as Indies, the prefix West having been given them to 
distinguish them from the Indies proper, or, as they are now 
called, the East Indies. All things considered, it is perhaps 



176 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

strange that the whole New World was not similarly 
named ; at least, The Indies is the Spanish official designa- 
tion of America to this day. But while the name that Co- 
lumbus applied to the new countries is now used only in a 
restricted sense, the name that he applied to the people is 
used in a general sense. The native races of America are 
known as the Indians, or the American Indians, to distin- 
guish them from the Asiatic or original Indians. As a re- 
sult, wherever the word '•' Indian " is used as a local name, 
either by itself or in combination, we have a memorial of 
the erroneous theory that lay in the mind of Columbus 
when he sailed from Palos, and of the practical mistakes 
that he committed afterward, and in which he persisted to 
his death.* 

A thousand times has the failure to call by his name the 
world to which Columbus piloted the way been declared a 
grievous wrong. Had such a suggestion been made to him, 
he would have repelled it with passionate warmth. He had 
brooded on Asia, he sailed for Asia, his great plans turned 
on Asia, and it was Asia that he had found. To listen to 
anything else would have been treason to the passion of his 
life. He had sought what he did not find ; he had found 
what he did not seek. We know thai his failure was a far 
grander triumph than his success could have been, but this 
thought lay below the horizon of his day. But we must not 
think Columbus blinder than others. Asia had completely 
enthralled the men of that age, and they could see no other 
vision when they looked into the West. History is full of 

* Dr. George E. Ellis says : " It is to be noted, however, that the Erench, 
who so soon after followed the Spaniards by voyages to the southern and 
northern lands on the mainland of our domain, did not adopt or use the 
word ' Indians ' as a name for the aborigines. I do not recall a single case 
of its use by any of the Erench explorers. They uniformly spoke and 
wrote, of the natives as ' les sauvages ' — the savages. Occasionally a reference 
may be found in which a Erench writer will use the expression, ' the In- 
dians, as the English call the savages.' " — The Bed Man and the White 
Man, p. 3. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: TI1E NEW WORLD. 177 

examples, including both the Cabots and explorers as late 
as John Smith, Henry Hudson, and La Salle. John Cabot 
thought that he had landed in the territory of the Grand 
Khan when he made his landfall in the region of the St. 
Lawrence. Thoroughly to cast Asia out of the map of the 
Western Hemisphere was the work of two hundred years. 

Americus Vespucius was long supposed to have robbed 
Columbus of the honor that was his due. This is now 
known to be a baseless charge. Without attempting to 
guess the Yespucian riddle, which is, perhaps, the most per- 
plexing in the history of Western exploration, the main 
facts in relation to the baptism of the New World may be 
stated. 

In April or May, 1503, Vespucius wrote a letter to Loren- 
zo de Medici, giving an account of his voyage in 1501-2, the 
so-called third of the Yespucian voyages, in which he had 
followed the South American coast far to the south of Cape 
San Eoque. He thought it proper to call this coast a new 
world. The translator of a Latin version of this letter that 
appeared at the beginning of the next year made these 
words the title of his little pamphlet, Mundus Novus. Nu- 
merous editions of this tract were published in different 
languages, and among others the Latin edition referred to 
at Strasburg, in 1505. In September, 1504, Yespucius wrote 
a letter to Soderini, a magistrate of Florence and an old 
schoolfellow, in which he gave a rough outline of his four 
voyages. This letter was published in Florence, July, 1506. 

At this time there was a small group of scholars, some- 
times called an academy or college, clustered around a print- 
ing press in Saint Die, in the Yosges Mountains. While 
these scholars were employed upon a new edition of Ptol- 
emy's Geography, there was brought to them a French copy 
of Yespucius's letter to Soderini, which was handed over to 
Martin Waldseemuiler and Matthias Bingman, who were 
more especially charged with the work, to be used as mate- 
rial. Bingman was the man who had brought out the Stras- 
burg edition of the letter to Lorenzo, and was therefore 



178 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

already familiar with the idea of a new world. Too impa- 
tient to await the tardy appearance of the Ptolemy, the two 
scholars executed a work named Cosmographiae Introductio. 
This work, consisting of fifty -two leaves, contained a simple 
treatise on cosmography and the full text of the letter to 
Soderini. The last chapter of the original part of the work, 
following descriptions of Asia, Europe, and Africa as the 
three grand divisions of the earth, as taught by Ptolemy, 
contained this pregnant sentence : 

"But now these parts have been more extensively ex- 
plored, and another fourth part has been discovered by 
Americus Vespucius. as will appear in what follows : where- 
fore I do not see what is rightly to hinder us from calling it 
Amerige or America, i. e., the land of Americus, after its 
discoverer Americus, a man of sagacious mind, since both 
Europe and Asia have got their names from women." 

The Cosmographiae Introductio was published in 1507, 
and attained a considerable circulation. Its principal au- 
thor, Waldseemiiller, baptized America. We must not sup- 
pose that the Saint Die scholar dreamed of what he was do- 
ing. He intended merely to call a part of the country that 
we know as Brazil, America. The name was soon expanded. 
On John Ruysch's map of 1508, so much of South America 
as appears is called Terra Sanctae Crucis, sive Mundus Novus, 
while the discoveries that had already been made in the 
north are represented as appendages of Asia. On the map 
assigned to Leonardo da Yinci (about 1514) America takes 
the place of this double designation, and on Mercator's Pro- 
jection (1541) Labrador, Nova Scotia, Florida, Mexico, and 
Mundus Novus are connected by continuous though very 
inaccurate coast lines, making a continent wholly distinct 
and separate from Asia, while, as if to solemnize the mar- 
riage, the first three letters of the name AMERICA, now 
given to the whole continent, are placed above the site of 
Lake Superior, and the last four west of the River Plate. 

Still Columbus's name has been many times impressed 
on the map of the New World ; witness the United States of 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 179 

Colombia, the District of Columbia, the capitals of South. 
Carolina and Ohio, the great river of Oregon, and the minor 
Columbuses and Columbias scattered over our land. Then 
the poetic name sometimes given to America, but com- 
monly to the United States, should not be forgotten. Its 
earliest use in literature, in the more limited sense, is said 
to be in Dr. Dwight's song : 

Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, 

The queen of the world and the child of the skies. 

The land that Vespucius called Novus Mundus and Wald- 
seemuller America, was first called Sancta Cruz, and after- 
ward Terra Sanctae Crucis. America was soon used for a 
general purpose, while the earlier names gave way to Bra- 
zil, a name given to the country because it produced Brazil 
wood, a highly prized dye stuff, so called on account of its 
color — braza, a live coal or glowing fire. The same name, 
variously spelled, had before been applied to a mythical 
island lying in the Atlantic. Mr. Scaife says the name had 
"a will-o'-the wisp character," since it designated various 
bodies of land on different maps, as an anarctic continent 
extending to the south pole, as well as the island of Brazil, 
which the map-makers moved about to suit themselves. 
The mythical geography of the Atlantic Ocean contributed 
another notable name to American history. Antillia, or 
Isle of Seven Cities, one of the most persistent of the imagi- 
nary islands, was supposed to lie in mid-ocean on the road 
to Cathay. Toscanelli, who figured it on his celebrated map, 
told Columbus that it would be a convenient halfway house 
on his great voyage to the Indies. Early in the sixteenth 
century the name was given to the groups of islands that 
still bear it — the Greater and the Lesser Antilles. 

India and Indian are not the only American names that 
commemorate blunders. The body of water called Rio Ja- 
neiro is a bay, and not a river ; the Rio de la Plata is not a 
river of silver. The name of the greatest river on the globe 
was given to it in the belief that its banks were inhabited by 



180 now to study and teach history. 

a tribe of female warriors, and so it keeps alive the Amazons 
who figure in ancient story. On the St. Lawrence, not far 
above Montreal, the village of Lachine stands at the foot of 
the rapids of the same name. Mr. Parkman quotes an old 
French authority, who says that the name was given to the 
place in 1669 by some of La Salle's men, who refused longer 
to follow him, in derision of the adventurer's dream of a 
westward passage to China. Another account is that La 
Salle himself gave the name, in token of his early faith that 
he could reach China by the way of the St. Lawrence. 
Mention may also be made of the coast that was early called 
Tierra del Labrador, cultivable land, to distinguish the re- 
gion, it is said, from Greenland. 

Two nations that shared in the division of America wrote 
their religious creeds on the maps of the regions that they 
visited and for a time controlled. For example, we find in 
Canada, the Lake region, and the Mississippi Valley many 
rivers named for saints : the St. Croix, the St. Johns, the St. 
Lawrence, the St. Francis, the St. Charles, St. Maurice, St. 
Claire, St. Josephs, St. Louis, and many others. In Florida 
the St. Marys and the St. Johns are found. Between Nova 
Scotia and Florida, with a single exception, I recall no river 
that bears the name of a saint. The French who named 
the rivers of the North and West, and the Spaniards who 
named those of the South,, were Catholics, while the Eng- 
lish who occupied the middle region were Protestants. The 
exception proves the rule— it is the St. Marys of Maryland, 
a Catholic colony. The geographical distribution of towns 
and cities bearing the prefix ' k St.," " San," or " Santa," is also 
well worth observing. In fact, from the day that Columbus 
called Guanahani San Salvador, the Spaniards, Portuguese, 
and French gave full proof of their piety by drawing heavily 
upon the saints' calendar and the list of holy days to mark 
their discoveries. 

A small island off the western coast of Newfoundland 
is called Baccalaos. This word is extensively used in south_ 
ern Europe as a name for codfish. It has the same mean- 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 181 

ing as stock-fish, so called because this fish was commonly 
stuck on a stock or stick to be cured. Baccalaos, variously- 
spelled, is found on many of the maps of the early discover- 
ers on the eastern coast of North America. Sometimes it is 
the name of an island, sometimes of an extensive region on 
the mainland, sometimes it comprehends Newfoundland, 
Labrador, and Nova Scotia. Who first used the name can 
not be ascertained, but the causes that led to its use are 
clear enough. At that time, when all Christians were Catho- 
lics and the Catholic festivals were universally observed, 
fish were a very important article of food and fishing a very 
important industry ; and it was but natural that the name 
" codfish land " should be given to the region where, as the 
Cabots said, these fish almost crowded one another out of the 
water. 

A full list of names once placed on maps of America- 
that did not remain there would be a long one. Peru was 
called New Castile. Sir Francis Drake, on his voyage 
around the world in 1577-80, visited the western shore of 
the United States, took possession of it in the name of Queen 
Elizabeth, and named it Nova Albion. The same name was 
given to New Jersey, when it was patented to Edward Plow- 
den in 1634. Around few of our lost names does more ro- 
mance cluster than around Norumbega. This name, vari- 
ously spelled, is found on many early maps, sometimes des- 
ignating an island off the coast south of the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence, and sometimes a part of the mainland. We read 
also of a river and city bearing the same name ; the river is 
supposed to have been the Penobscot, the city was never 
found. In the day when the discovery of gold was an al- 
most universal passion, when fancy was quick and men 
were credulous, it was not strange that crazy adventurers, 
misinterpreting what the Indians told them, should invent 
an El Dorado ; while of all possible regions the vast wilds 
of the Orinoco or the Amazon were the most favorable for 
its location. On no other subject did the Spaniards so oft- 
en misunderstand the Indians as in relation to the precious 



182 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

metals. Efforts to find the gold and silver of Manoa, culmi- 
nating in those made by Sir Walter Ealeigh at the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, yield to few adventures in respect 
to romance and peril, and to none in respect to the disap- 
pointments with which they were crowned. The fictions 
of the El Dorado and of the Amazons originated at the same 
time. Basing her claim upon Verrazzano's voyage of 1524, 
France at one time claimed the eastern sea front of the 
United States, and her attempt to colonize and hold the 
southern portion of it led to some of the most tragical 
events in colonial history. Two important marks of 
that temporary occupation still remain, the names Port 
Eoyal and Carolina, the second of which was given 
for Charles IX of France. In accordance with the 
same claim, Henry IV gave the region bounded on the 
south by the fortieth parallel, and on the north by the 
forty-sixth parallel, to De Monts, the charter bearing the 
date 1603. The king imposed upon the grant the name 
Acadia. The establishment of the English colonies and 
other causes soon limited the name to the peninsula that 
the English afterward named Nova Scotia. Acadia has 
disappeared from the map, but will long live in history, 
and in tale and story. 

California is perhaps the most romantic of all our Ameri- 
can names. In 1862 Dr. E. E. Hale fouud the name in a 
Spanish romance that appeared in 1510, entitled The Deeds 
of Esplandian. In this romance this bit of description is 
met with : 

Know, then, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island 
called California, very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise, 
and it was peopled by black women, without any men among them, 
for they lived in the fashion of Amazons. They were of strong and 
hearty bodies, of ardent courage and great force. Their island was 
the strongest in all the world, with its steep cliffs and rocky shores. 
Their arms were all of gold, and so was the harness of the wild 
beasts which they tamed and rode. For in the whole island there 
was no metal but gold. They lived in caves wrought out of the 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 183 

rock with much labor. They had many ships with which they 
sailed out to other countries to obtain booty.* 

The connection between this romance and the western side 
of our continent has not been very clearly made out. Dr. 
Hale thought the name struck the fancy of Cortez as an 
omen of wealth, and that he made the application in 1530 ; 
as a Western person now gives the name of Eden to his new 
home, so Cortez called his new discovery California. This 
is probable enough as to the process, but doubtful as to the 
man and the time. The name is a striking one, derived per- 
haps from the Eastern title caliph, and it does not require 
much ingenuity to see how such adventurers as the Span- 
iards should have borrowed it from the romance.! Certain 
it is that the name became greatly expanded ; there came to 
be an Upper and a Lower California, the first of which is 
now the State of that name, while the second is still a prov- 
ince of Mexico. For many years following the discovery 
of gold California was often called El Dorado : this was 
because that golden name had come to be a synonym for a 
place where it was believed wealth could be rapidly accumu- 
lated. 

Of the familiar process of name expansion the New 
World offers some good examples. America and Brazil 
have already been mentioned. When the Spaniards in- 
vaded the country of Montezuma they found that his capi- 
tal and the district surrounding it were called Mexico, a 
name derived from the Aztec war god. This name the 
Spaniards gave to the whole country, and afterward to a 
large share of Spanish North America. The first use of 
Canada, as well as its origin, is disputed ; some writers de- 
rive it from a Latin root, some say it is a native word ; some 
hold that it was first a generic name, and some that it was a 
local name ; the probability is that the name is Indian, 
meaning a village or collection of huts, and that the early 

* The Atlantic Monthly, vol. xhi, p. 267. 
+ See Winsor : Narrative and Critical History, vol. ii, p. 443. 
14 



184: HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

French explorers, meeting it for the first time on the lower 
St. Lawrence, mistook it, for the name of a. region or dis- 
trict. No one claims that the Indians, or even the French, 
ever used it in its present greatly enlarged signification. 

In 1513, Ponce de Leon, while in search of the fountain of 
youth, as the story runs, discovered the southern peninsula 
in which the Atlantic coast terminates, and named it Florida, 
because he first saw the shore on Pascua Florida, or flowery 
Sunday, as the Spaniards call Easter. This name the Span- 
iards extended until " it comprehended," says Mr. Parkman, 
"the whole country extending from the Atlantic on the 
east to the longitude of New Mexico on the west, and from 
the Gulf of Mexico and River of Palms indefinitely north- 
ward toward the frozen sea." The same writer tells us fur- 
ther that a map of the time of Henry H of France names 
all North America Terra Florida. France and England 
laid claim to large parts of this territory. France finally 
withdrew her claim in the South, leaving the other two 
powers to settle their dispute. England founded the colo- 
nies of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia in spite of the 
opposition of Spain. The Spanish claim, and so Florida 
itself, was more and more hemmed in ; but no final bound- 
ary had been agreed upon down to the time that Florida 
was ceded to England, in 1763. Long before this time the 
founding of Louisiana by the French had cut Florida short 
on the west, at the Perdido River. The King of England, 
the very year of the cession, made the St. Marys River and 
the thirty- first parallel the northern boundary of the prov- 
ince. Passing by the later disputes over its boundaries, we 
may say that Florida came to the United States in 1819 
with the limits just named, and that it was afterward some- 
what reduced in order to widen Alabama's front on the Gulf 
of Mexico. 

The first Louisiana was the Mississippi Valley, together 
with the country east and west draining to the Gulf of 
Mexico from the Perdido to the Rio Grande. The sec- 
ond Louisiana was the western half of the valley and the 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 185 

island of New Orleans. This was the Louisiana purchase of 
1803. In 1804 Congress organized that part of the purchase 
lying south of parallel 33° into the Territory of Orleans, and 
the next year the part lying north of the same line into the 
Territory of Louisiana. This state of things continued 
until 1812, when the Territory of Orleans, with some minor 
changes of boundaries, became the State of Louisiana, and 
the Territory of Louisiana took the name of Missouri. 

In choosing names of discoverers and explorers for geo- 
graphical purposes, the Muse of History acted a capricious 
part. Her treatment of Columbus and Vespucius has al- 
ready been described. Neither of the two Cabots nor John 
Smith was in any way recognized. Raleigh liyes in the 
capital of North Carolina. Hudson is commemorated by 
the river, the strait, and the bay that bear his name. Cham- 
plain gave his name to the lake that he discovered in 1609, 
but none of the other great French discoverers has been 
equally honored — neither Verrazzano nor Cartier, La Salle 
nor Hennepin. Marquette is the name of a city in Michi- 
gan, and Joliet of one in Illinois. In the far North, where 
competition for territory was less eager, it is somewhat dif- 
ferent ; here we meet the names of Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, 
and Smith. The great Spanish discoverers and conquerors 
fared still worse than the Englishmen and Frenchmen ; the 
names of Ponce de Leon, De Soto, Cortes, Coronado are 
unknown to the maps unless in humble capacities. In later 
times it has been much as it was in the beginning : Mac- 
kenzie, Lewis, Clark, Pike, Long, Fremont, are familiar 
names of mountains or rivers ; but we search in vain for 
any token of the brothers La Verendrye, who discovered the 
Rocky Mountains ; of Gray, who first sailed into the mouth 
of the Columbia ; or of Bonneville, who first explored the 
Great Basin. 

A glance at a map of the New World would teach any 
student, independently of other evidence, that it had been in 
possession of a native race or races before the arrival of the 
European colonists. There is no mistaking an aboriginal 



186 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

name for a European one. The Indian names that remain 
throw light upon the distribution and relationships of the 
native tribes, upon their habits of mind, and the scope of 
their geographical ideas. They illustrate the tendency to 
name an object with reference to some striking quality or 
feature. Minnehaha is laughing water ; Sandusky, cold 
spring ; Michilimackinac, great-turtle place. The Indians 
of the north, at least, were deficient in general names, as of 
regions and districts ; even our States that bear Indian 
names have borrowed them from local features, as the name 
of a river or of an Indian tribe. As in Europe, the most 
persistent names are those of rivers. A large majority of 
the important rivers of the United States bear Indian names, 
and particularly those of the West, some of which have 
survived a close competition with one or more European 
names. The Spaniards first called the Mississippi the river 
of the Holy Spirit ; Marquette called it the Immaculate 
Conception, and La Salle the Colbert ; the Iroquois called 
it the Ohio ; but the proper Algonquin name, Mississippi, 
meaning " much water " or " many waters," was the fittest, 
if survival is a test of fitness. The French called the Ohio 
both the St. Louis and the La Belle Riviere, but here again 
the native name triumphed. Cartier adopted the Indian 
name Hochelaga for the great river of the north, but St. 
Lawrence, the name that he had given to the gulf, unfortu- 
nately superseded it. The same river is called the Iroquois 
and the Cataraqui in many old historical documents. 

It is a significant fact that, relatively, a much larger num- 
ber of native names has been preserved in the West than in 
the East. Only two of the fifteen Atlantic States bear such 
names, while only five of the twenty-nine other States bear 
European names. Something the same is true also of rivers 
and other natural features of the country. White men sud- 
denly introduced to the Atlantic slope tended to use Euro- 
pean names ; while in the West, where they became ac- 
quainted with the country gradually, they tended to use a 
larger number of the native names. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 187 

The nations colonizing America would naturally want 
names for their new possessions, and just as naturally they 
would tend to name them after the old countries. Spain 
was content with The Indies as a general name ; but she 
called her vast dominions in North America, exclusive of 
Florida, New Spain, a name that remained on the map until 
those dominions became independent. On Franquelin's map, 
such of Louis XIY's American dominions as drained to the 
Atlantic, the St. Lawrence, and the Great Lakes are called 
New France ; such of them as drained to the G-ulf of Mexico, 
Louisiana. At a later day New France included both of 
these two great divisions, while the divisions themselves 
were called Louisiana and Canada.* The Swedes called 
their colony on the Delaware New Sweden, and the Dutch 
their more vigorous plantings New Netherlands. New Eng- 
land was never used in a general sense. In one respect 
England's possessions in North America were peculiar ; 
they never had any proper general name. The nearest ap- 
proach to it was Virginia. 

The Cabots did not name the coasts visited by them in 
1497-98, that England afterward claimed by right of their 
discoveries. The charter granted to Sir Walter Raleigh in 
1584 neither named nor described any region that he was 
authorized to colonize. Raleigh proposed to call the country 
to which he sent his ships Virginia, in honor of the Virgin 
Queen, and Elizabeth promptly approved the suggestion. 
The charter of 1606, that created the London and Plym- 
outh Companies, authorized the planting of two colonies 
in that part of America commonly called Virginia, and 
other parts and territories lying between 34° and 45° north 
latitude. The charter of 1609 to the London Company 

* " According to Ortilius, New France comprises the whole of both North 
and South America ; so also in the Speculum Orbis Ten-arum of Cornelius, 
1593. The application of this name dated back to a period immediately 
after the voyage of Verrazzano, and the Dutch geographers are especially 
free in their use of it, out of spite of the Spaniards." — Parlcman: Pioneers 
of France in the New World, p. 184- 



188 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

bounded Virginia on the south by a latitudinal line drawn 
through a point two hundred miles south of Old Point Com- 
fort, and north by a west and northwest line drawn through 
a point the same distance from the same starting place, 
"throughout from sea to sea." The charter of 1611-12 
made the Bermudas a part of Virginia. 

These vast limits were invaded on every side. The Mary- 
land and Pennsylvania charters, 1632 aud 1681, with the 
subsequent settlements, limited the colony on the north by 
the Potomac River and Mason and Dixon's line ; the Caro- 
lina charter of 1665, limited it on the south by the parallel 
36° 30'. The treaties made in 1763, at the close of the French 
and Indian War, bounded the English colonies on the west, 
Virginia included, by the Mississippi River. At the close 
of the Revolution Virginia claimed on the parallel 36° 30' to 
the Mississippi, and northwest of the Ohio to the Great Lakes 
and the same river. In 1784 she surrendered to the National 
Government her claim to the Old Northwest, and in 1792 
she consented to the admission of Kentucky to the Union as 
an independent State. The Civil War still further limited 
the State of Virginia by the creation of West Virginia. 

In 1608 Captain John Smith explored more fully than 
had yet been done the coast of northern Virginia beyond 
Cape Cod, mapped it, and named it New England. The 
charter of 1620 confirmed to the Plymouth Company all that 
part of America lying between the fortieth and the forty- 
eighth parallels of north latitude, "throughout all the main- 
lands from sea to sea," King James at the same time declar- 
ing it to be his will and pleasure that the same should 
henceforth be called by the name of New England in 
America. This great domain was cut short in the north by 
the French claims and settlements, and on the west and 
southwest by the operations of the Dutch on the Hudson 
and the creation of the group of middle colonies. 

At first Englishmen called the new English communities 
beyond the Atlantic The Colonies, or The Plantations, and 
afterward, when circumstances required more precision, 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 189 

The Thirteen Colonies, or The American Colonies. When 
these communities became independent, and assumed a sepa- 
rate station among" the nations of the earth, they took the 
name The United States of America. It has often been 
proposed that this designation, which is rather a description 
than a name, should be dropped, and a real name, as " Co- 
lumbia," " Appalachia," or "Alleghania," should be adopted 
in its stead. 

There is not a State in the Union a good map of which 
will not teach some valuable historical lessons. The shower 
of classical names on the map of Central New York does not 
point to a Roman or Greek occupation of that State, but it 
certainly was not an accident. The large number of places 
in Virginia marked " C. H.," with the name of the county 
preceding the letters, as Hanover Court House, Fairfax 
Court House, Cumberland Court House, etc., point plainly 
enough to the infrequency of towns that was so character- 
istic of that State in early times.* The names of Gallia 
County and Gallipolis, Ohio, testify to the French emigra- 
tion that the Scioto Company, under the lead of Joel Barlow, 
brought to the banks of the Ohio. Cincinnati was named 
for the famous Revolutionary society of the Cincinnati, and 
points us back to the Roman dictator. The map of Michigan 
bears impartial testimony to the presence of the races and 
nationalities that have dominated the two peninsulas, the 
Indian, the French, and the Anglo-American. In the south- 
central and southwestern portions of the State many coun- 
ties are known by the names of President Jackson and lead- 
ing Democratic statesmen of his time — Calhoun, Van Buren, 

* " One great element of modern life was wholly wanting. There were 
practically no towns and no centers of population. The people were widely 
scattered over the whole face of the country. . . . These [county] towns, 
planted in many cases in the midst of the forest, usually consisted of the 
courthouse, the prison, and its accompaniments of stocks, pillory, whip- 
ping post, and ducking stool, with one miserable inn, where the judges 
lodged when they came to hold court." — Lodge : A Short History of th& 
English Colonies in America,])]). 50, 52. 



190 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

Cass, Livingston, Berrien, Branch, Eaton, and Barry. Not a 
single Whig statesman has been similarly honored. The 
explanation is that the State came into the Union under 
Democratic auspices, in 1837, and was itself strongly Demo- 
cratic in politics at the time when this portion of the State 
was settled. 

Why some names survive and others perish, is a curious 
question. Professor E. G. Bourne draws attention to the 
fact that Waldseemuller really proposed two names for the 
Novus Mundus of Vespucius— Amerige, composed of the 
Greek ge and a shortened genitive of Americus, and a femi- 
nine form of Americus; and he thinks the second one was 
adopted rather than the first because it is simpler and more 
euphonious.* No doubt the superior fitness or convenience 
of one name rather than another was often a decisive factor. 
Political causes also had much to do with the matter. The 
triumph of England over France effaced New France and 
Acadia from the map, while the independence of Mexico 
abolished New Spain. 

Still closer attention may be drawn to the relations ex- 
isting between names and nationalities. The traces of the 
French in South Carolina, on Lake Champlain, in the West, 
and on the northern New England shore are too obvious to 
be mistaken. It is not necessary to read history to learn that 
the Dutch, the first of Europeans, occupied the Hudson and 
Mohawk Valleys, New York Bay, and parts of New Jersey. 
At the close of the seventeenth century and the beginning 
of the succeeding one, thousands of Scotch-Irish flocked to 
America ; and their names may be found scattered along 
our great Eastern mountain system from Londonderry in 
New Hampshire to the far South. Holland, and several 
other names of Netherland provinces found on the western 
shore of the lower Michigan peninsula, enable us to locate 
a large Dutch emigration. Historical geography teaches us 
that a large part of the United States once belonged to 

* The Nation, No. 1423. 



HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY: THE NEW WORLD. 191 

Spain ; for example, little learning is required to distin- 
guish between the river names of Texas or California and 
those of the Atlantic slope. 

One of the most important lessons read in our historical 
geography is the great number of Old World names found 
on our maps. These names teach us how much easier it is 
to borrow an old name than to make a new one. They es- 
tablish lines of race descent and of historical connection. 
They speak of the emigrant's fondness for the places and 
scenes and men that he has left behind him. Very often 
we find a name that has been many times repeated ; perhaps 
it was first used in Massachusetts, then transported to West- 
ern New York or to Ohio, next to Wisconsin or Iowa, and 
finally to the Pacific slope. The emigration that has made 
the last transfer locks back to its previous home, as the Eng- 
lish emigrants to Massachusetts or Virginia looked back to 
the mother country. All the nationalities that have con- 
tributed to our mixed population have also contributed to 
our store of geographical names. 



CHAPTER XV. 

NORTH AMERICA IN OUTLINE. 

References. — Rectus : The Earth and its Inhabitants (The United 
States), also other works previously mentioned ; Guyot : Earth and 
Man ; Whitney : The United States. Facts and Figures Illustrat- 
ing the Physical Geography of the Country and its Material Re- 
sources ; Shaler : Previous references ; Ganett : A Dictionary of 
Altitudes in the United States ; Doyle : The History of the United 
States, Chap. I., The English Colonies in America, I., The Puritan 
Colonies, II., Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas ; Count of Paris : 
History of the Civil War in America (Vol. III., Chap. I., Rivers and 
Railways) ; Draper : History of the American Civil War, Thoughts 
on the Future Civil Polity of America (I., On the Influence of Cli- 
mate) ; Thwaites, Hart, and Wilson : Epoch Series of American 
History : MacCoun : Historical Geography of the United States, 
Historical Charts of the United States. 

The teacher of history should form in his mind an out- 
line map of the theater with which he deals, — an outline at 
once strong and hold, and also sufficiently detailed to hold 
the larger historical facts. This map will he larger or 
smaller according to the breadth of the field that he is cov- 
ering. If he is treating the civil war in England, a map 
of Great Britain suffices ; hut if he is following the career 
of Napoleon, his survey must practically embrace all Eu- 
rope. The teacher of the history of the United States will 
find it necessary to work out such a map of North America. 
Moreover, no small part of his task will be to develop simi- 
lar maps in the minds of his pupils, and to show them how 
to organize their historical material with reference to them. 



NORTH AMERICA IN OUTLINE. 193 

As an aid to teachers who are seeking to do this work, as 
well as a preparation for several chapters that are to follow, 
a mental sketch map of our continent is submitted. 

In form North America hears a general likeness to a tri- 
angle. Its sides are formed by the shore lines of the three 
oceans that inclose it. In size it is the third of the conti- 
nents, containing a little less than 8,000,000 square miles 
(7,952,386 square miles, including the West Indies). 

The eastern north-and-south trending ranges of the Cor- 
dilleran Mountain system form the primary geographical 
axis of the continent, and divide it into two very different 
but not very unequal parts. 

The western division, consisting of a vast complex of 
mountain ranges and peaks, valleys, basins, slopes, and pla- 
teaus, is sometimes called the Pacific Highlands, sometimes 
the Cordilleran System, and again the Cordilleran Region. 
This region is very complicated in geographical structure, 
even that part of it which falls within the United States be- 
ing divided into six several parts : 1, The Rocky Mountains ; 
2, The Great Basin and the Basin ranges ; 3, The Northern 
or Columbian Plateau ; 4, The Southern or Colorado Pla- 
teau ; 5, The Sierra and Cascade ranges; 6, The Pacific 
Coast ranges. While we are not called upon to describe 
these one by one, some of the more general features of the 
region should be worked out. 

The first fact to invite our attention is the high elevation 
which the Pacific Highlands reach. In the United States 
alone there are numerous mountain peaks that attain to 
heights of more than fourteen thousand feet above the level 
of the sea. These high altitudes, however, are much less 
significant than the high average elevation of the whole 
mass. If the continent were depressed about six thousand 
feet — or, what amounts to the same thing, if the sea were 
raised by that amount — while its whole eastern side would 
disappear beneath the waves, on the western side, in Cen- 
tral America, in Mexico, in the United States, and in the 
British Possessions, not merely isolated mountain peaks, but 



194 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

extensive plateaus and valleys would still be above the sur- 
face. 

Railroads that cross mountains seek out the natural pass- 
es or depressions. The Northern Pacific Railroad pierces 
the divide of the Rocky Mountains, high up in William's 
Pass, by a tunnel four-fifths of a mile long, at an elevation 
of 5,548 feet. The Union Pacific Railroad, in South Pass, 
attains an elevation of more than eight thousand feet. The 
Central Pacific crosses the Sierra Nevada seven thousand 
feet above the sea level. Ogden, where the Union Pacific 
and the Central Pacific effect their junction, is forty-three 
hundred feet, or about the level of Salt Lake. 

Another feature is the shore line ; north of Puget Sound 
this is irregular, but not deeply indented; south of the sound 
it is so remarkably regular that one rarely finds an extend- 
ed coast that conforms more closely to a series of straight 
lines drawn from headland to headland. There are but two 
or three good harbors within the limits of the United States, 
the best ones being formed by the bays of San Francisco 
and San Diego. The rapid growth of San Francisco is 
mainly owing to its having the finest harbor on the coast. 
The mouth of the Columbia River is difficult of access, save 
to steam vessels handled by skillful pilots. 

Mention of the Columbia suggests another characteristic 
feature ; but few rivers come down to the sea. There are 
but two worthy of note in the United States — the Columbia 
and the Colorado — and these are in no sense continental 
streams. No river on that side opens a water-way to the 
central part of the continent. 

But the absence of continental rivers is not the only fact 
that makes the continent difficult of approach on that side. 
Starting from any point on the coast that one may choose, 
he must cross parallel chains of lofty mountains before he 
reaches the interior. Again, the slopes are abrupt — some of 
them very abrupt. The descent from the summit of the 
Central Pacific Railroad on the sierra to the great valley of 
California is greater than that from the South Pass to 



NORTH AMERICA IN OUTLINE. 19 5 

Omaha, and is made in a much shorter distance. The loco- 
motives that draw the heavily laden trains up the slopes of 
the sierra labor as though they were things of life. 

Putting all that has been said together, we see that the 
western side of North America is geographically closed and 
unsocial. It does not stretch out open hands to the Pacific 
Ocean and the world beyond. Nor should we fail to observe 
that, until we reach a high latitude, there are no islands off 
the coast or near the coast that could allure the discoverer, 
or give the colonist a basis of operations against the con- 
tinent itself. The greatest of all the oceans rolls between 
that shore and the ancient but stunted civilizations of the 
opposing one. Fortunately, the continent did not invite the 
Mongolian race. 

Turning our backs upon the Pacific and facing the other 
way, we soon discover that the eastern side of the continent 
differs from the western in every feature that has been men- 
tioned. It is much simpler in structure. Not only are there 
no mountain ranges or peaks to compare with those of the 
Pacific Highlands, but the average elevation is low. We 
face two sides of the triangle, which are broken, and often 
deeply broken, by numerous indentations. Here we find 
some of the grandest rivers in the world. And, finally, the 
characteristic slopes are among the longest and gentlest with 
which the geographer has to deal. But all these points 
must be worked out in detail. 

Parallel with the Atlantic shore, and not a great distance 
from it, run the Appalachian Mountains from Point Gaspe 
to Alabama. This system forms the secondary axis of the 
continent. It consists of numerous chains or ridges, some 
of them practically continuous, although separated by 
transverse depressions, some of them parallel and separated 
by intervening valleys. The highest summits are Mount 
Washington, 6,290 feet, and the Black Dome, 6,688 feet 
above the level of the sea. In structure, this system of 
mountains is much the most complicated part of eastern 
North America. 



196 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

To the east of tlie Appalachian Mountains lies the Atlan- 
tic Slope or Plain, having an average width of not more than 
two hundred miles, and descending gradually from the 
mountain foothills to the shore. This slope is indented, 
and sometimes cut almost wholly across by numerous bays, 
sounds, and arms of the sea. It is also traversed by a multi- 
tude of rivers that head in the mountains, a few of them 
flowing east or south, but most of them following the gen- 
eral line of the slope to the southeast. These ocean inden- 
tations and rivers furnish numerous harbors — many of 
them excellent harbors — and some of them also water trans- 
portation almost to the very watersheds that supply them. 

The Atlantic slope is singularly open and accessible from 
the side of the sea ; but the mountains behind it, while of 
low elevation as compared with those of the Pacific slope, 
still form a mountain rampart that long opposed an effectual 
obstacle to westward movements of population, and even to 
discovery and exploration. 

Between the Cordilleran and Appalachian systems of 
mountains lies the Central Plain or middle region of the 
continent. This plain extends from the Arctic Ocean to the 
Gulf of Mexico, five thousand miles, and from east to west, 
in the widest part, one half that distance. The numerous 
inequalities that it presents, although some of them are 
called mountains, are so slight in comparison with the size 
of the region that we may well consider it as the third 
primary unit of the continent, the Pacific Highlands and the 
Atlantic Highlands being the other two. 

The Central Plain is divided into three parts. The St. 
Lawrence Valley and the Lake Basin, which together form 
one of the three subdivisions, cuts the Appalachian system 
and the Atlantic plain short on the north, and then, extend- 
ing first southwest and then north and northwest, splits the 
Central Plain one half in two. North of the watersheds of 
the St. Lawrence River and of the Great Lakes, and of the 
wavy slight elevation that extends westward to the Rocky 
Mountains, is the Arctic Plain, sloping gradually down to 



NORTH AMERICA IN OUTLINE. 197 

the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay, and the Labrador coast. 
South of the southern watersheds of the St. Lawrence, be- 
ginning at a point in central New York, and of the eleva- 
tion before referred to beyond the head of Lake Superior, 
and of the Great Lakes, the Mississippi Valley slopes south- 
ward to the Gulf of Mexico, by far the most important of 
the subdivisions of the Central Plain. Perhaps the best way 
to think of these three divisions is as continental drainage 
basins. 

The comparative sizes of the various physical divisions 
of the United States are of much interest. The following 
are the areas as given by Professor Whitney, to whom I am 
much indebted for facts used in the preparation of this 
chapter, Alaska not included : 



The Pacific slope and Great Basin 

The Atlantic slope . 

The Lake Basin 

The Mississippi Valley . 

Other Gulf of Mexico drainage 

Total . . . 



square miles. 
848,000 
277,000 
175,000 

1,240,000 
486,000 



3,018,000 



The eastern side of North America lies open to the sea. 
Three great water-ways pierce its center. 

First may be mentioned Hudson Bay and the Nelson- 
Winnipeg River system, which extends to the Rocky Moun- 
tains and Height of Land. The great bay, discovered by 
the man whose name it bears and whose life it cost, in the 
days when men were searching for a northwest sea route to 
the Indies, was once a bone of English and French conten- 
tion ; but since it is closed to navigation the major part of 
the year it has never acquired much historical importance. 
Still it offers the shortest passage from the far Northwest to 
the wharves of Liverpool, and the practicability of sending 
the grain products of that extensive region by that passage 
to the European markets is now under discussion. 

Secondly, the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes. This 



198 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

water-way played an important part in the early days of 
discovery and exploration ; and it was the object of a much 
fiercer contention between the great powers before mentioned 
than the more northern one, almost from the beginning of 
the French and English plantations down to 1763. In the 
two struggles between the United States and England the 
possession of the St. Lawrence has been vigorously attacked 
by the first and stoutly defended by the second. The basin 
that it drains is so large and so productive, and is so closely 
connected with the surrounding areas, while the St. Law- 
rence is itself such a noble river, that, as has been said, we 
might expect to find it forming the grand avenue of com- 
munication with the interior, and furnishing at or near its 
mouth the metropolis of the continent, were it not that the 
northeasterly trend of the river carries it into a region 
beyond that of successful cultivation and populous settle- 
ments, where navigation is suspended during a considerable 
portion of the year. As it is, New York is found at the 
opening of another inland commercial avenue. 

Par in the south the Gulf of Mexico makes th6 largest 
indentation found on the eastern side of the continent. This 
not only gives to the United States a long sea boundary of a 
thousand miles and more, but, what is of still greater impor- 
tance, through the numerous rivers that flow into it, and par- 
ticularly the Mississippi, makes the southern half of the Cen- 
tral Plain as accessible by water as any similar area in the 
world. The great extent of " the drainage of the territory 
of the United States into the Gulf of Mexico naturally opens 
the way to a recognition of the most important fact in the 
topography of the country, namely, the existence of such an 
orographic structure as compels the waters to concentrate 
themselves into one great system of tributaries, coming in 
from the east and the west, and uniting in a main north- 
and-south channel." 

We may now notice the elevations above the sea of a 
few points lying in the Lake Basin and the Mississippi 
Valley : 



NORTH AMERICA IN OUTLINE. 



199 



Lake Superior 
Lake Erie 
Lake Ontario 
Pittsburg 
Lake Itasca 
St, Paul . 
St. Louis 
Cairo 



feet. 
602 
573 
247 
700 
1,656 
700 
400 
300 



From St. Paul to the Yellowstone River the elevation is 
but two feet to the mile, and the Union Pacific Railroad 
ascends the Platte by a gradient of five feet to the mile. 

The Great Lakes call for more specific mention. A 
writer has remarked that the term " Basin of the Lakes " is 
a misnomer, for, like most fresh-water lakes, these bodies of 
water occupy an elevated plateau — the summit, in fact, of the 
vast expanse of land which spreads out between the Alle- 
ghanies and the Rocky Mountains. No large streams flow 
into them, and they drain limited areas. On the contrary, 
the Ohio, the Wabash, and other large tributaries of the 
Mississippi have their sources within a few miles of the lake 
borders, yet drain into the southern gulf ; while the great 
rivers of British America, commencing near the lakes, have 
their outlets in the northern seas. The magnificent St. 
Lawrence alone, finding its supply in these sources, pursues 
its eastward way to the Atlantic. The lakes cover a water 
area of ninety-five thousand square miles, and drain one of 
one hundred and fifty thousand. They make up the largest 
system of deep-water inland navigation on the globe, and 
contain more than one half of all its fresh-water surface. 
How elevated is the region that they occupy, and how 
low the surrounding watersheds, is shown by the channels 
through which at different times they have discharged 
their floods. Once there was an outlet from Lake Michigan 
through the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf of 
Mexico ; also one from Lake Erie to the Gulf by the Wa- 
bash. Later there was an open drainage channel from Lake 
15 



200 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Ontario through, the Mohawk and the Hudson to New York 
Bay, and still later an outlet from Lake Huron via Lake 
Nipissing, French River, and the Ottawa to the St. Law- 
rence. Once the Hudson, Lake Chaniplain, and the Riche- 
lieu formed a continuous body of water. Geologically, it 
is only in very recent times that the present outlet through 
the Detroit River, the Niagara, and the St. Lawrence be- 
came the sole channel of discharge of the northern waters. 

Nature could hardly have furnished easier lines of com- 
munication from any one of the three great drainage sec- 
tions of the Central Plain to those adjoining, provided she 
were to preserve their individuality at all. 

From New York Bay northward to the St. Lawrence ex- 
tends a strongly marked depression of surface that cuts the 
Appalachian system asunder and separates New England 
from the Middle States. In the southern half of this depres- 
sion lies the Hudson River, with New York city at its ex- 
tremity ; in the northern half, the Richelieu-Champlain sys- 
tem, with Montreal at its extremity ; the two separated and 
connected by a narrow " divide," over which canal and rail- 
road make their way with ease. The Hudson-Richelieu 
Valley is the most noticeable feature in both the topography 
and the history of the country. In the French wars, in the 
Revolution, in the War of 1812, it was the theater of impor- 
tant military operations, especially the northern half of it ; 
and it is certain to become such a theater again if, unhappily, 
the two powers that divide its possession should again become 
involved in war. The Iroquois Indians perfectly understood 
the importance of Lake Chaniplain. They called it "the 
Gate of the Country. " 

Again, the Hudson River offers easy means of com- 
munication from deep water to the lower lakes. The 
effect of the tides is felt as far up as Albany ; and here flows 
into the Hudson its principal tributary, the Mohawk, which 
leads up to the low elevations that separate the basins of 
Lakes Ontario and Erie from the Atlantic plain and the 
Mississippi Valley. 



NORTH AMERICA IN OUTLINE. 201 

South of the Hudson are several river valleys that deeply 
indent the mountain mass : the Delaware, the Susquehanna, 
the Potomac, the James, and the Savannah. The Carolina 
rivers penetrate less deeply, while their mouths are muffled 
by sand bars and islands formed of materials washed 
down from above. South of the mountains a belt of land 
runs east and west along the Gulf Coast, uniting the Atlan- 
tic Plain with the Mississippi Valley. 

Early Western emigration moved westward along four 
main lines of travel : 1, the Hudson-Mohawk depression, 
leading to the lakes ; 2, the Potomac, leading to the upper 
Ohio; 3, the Valley of Virginia, and the mountain gaps 
at its head, leading into Tennessee and Kentucky; 4, the 
zone of low land lying along the Gulf. It was by the way 
of the Potomac and the Valley of Virginia that emigrants 
first reached the Great West ; but the first canal and rail- 
road connecting the West and tide water were constructed 
through the Mohawk Valley. 

The natural barriers separating the Lake Basin and the 
Mississippi Valley are much less formidable than those that 
we have been considering. In Ohio the canal summits are 
but four hundred feet above Lake Erie ; in Indiana the water 
partings are still lower ; while in early days boatmen, in 
times of high water, sometimes poled rafts and flat-bottomed 
boats from Lake Michigan to the Des Plaines and Illinois 
Rivers. In Wisconsin and Minnesota the portages are fre- 
quent and easy, and boats may still be pushed from the Min- 
nesota into the Red River of the North. 

Perhaps the easy transits between the four great drainage 
areas can be presented still more strongly. So complete is 
the break made by the Hudson-Mohawk system in the moun- 
tain wall that a sinking of land to an amount of only about 
one hundred and fifty feet would isolate from the rest of the 
continent all of New England and that part of Canada lying 
to the southeast of the St. Lawrence as far as the extrem- 
ity of Gaspe. A further sinking of two hundred and eighty 
feet would open a water-way from the Atlantic to the Great 



202 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Lakes, and leave the mass of the Adirondacks as an island 
lying adjacent to New England on the east and the Appa- 
lachian land mass on the south. A depression of five hun- 
dred feet would cause the Gulf of Mexico to set hack to Cin- 
cinnati and Burlington, and almost to Chicago and Jefferson 
City. A depression of one thousand feet would unite the 
Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico ; and one of two thou- 
sand feet would overwhelm all the watersheds east of the 
Kocky Mountains except the upper parts of the Appalachians, 
and probably the Lauren tian Hills. 

The eastern side of North America is its open and ap- 
proachable side. The Atlantic, as compared with the Pa- 
cific, is a narrow ocean. Moreover, off the shore are numer- 
ous islands that not only held out their own attractions to 
navigators and planters two and a half centuries ago, but 
also afforded them convenient resting places on their way to 
the mainland : Newfoundland, the Bermudas, the Bahamas, 
and the Antilles. 

It would be hard to exaggerate the historical consequence 
of the facts that have been set forth. They furnish the ex- 
planation, in so far as natural facts ever explain such things, 
of many interesting matters of history. They help to ex- 
plain the all-important fact that North America became a 
historical dependency of Europe, and not of Asia. They 
throw a flood of light upon the first division of the continent 
among Spain, England, and France, on the course and or- 
der of discovery and exploration, and on the struggles of 
those powers for territorial dominion. They account for 
the extraordinary territorial expansion of the United States 
and their political unity. They enable us to understand the 
astonishing rapidity of Western settlements, and the equally 
astonishing celerity with which the artificial channels of 
travel and trade were constructed which now bind the sec- 
tions of the country together with bonds stronger than those 
of nature. They are the sure pledge of our future territorial 
and political integrity. As another has said : u Areas iso- 
lated by their natural features were, before modern methods 



NOETH AMERICA IN OUTLINE. 203 

of transportation had practically destroyed all natural bar- 
riers, adapted to be the cradle of permanent and strong races. 
Europe has been in all times peculiarly divided up into such 
areas ; hence the multiplicity of its political divisions and the 
fixity of the characteristics of the separate peoples which 
have inhabited them. North America, on the other hand, 
is unfitted to be the cradle place of different peoples ; its 
continent is in the main a geographical unit." 

Such a sketch map as the foregoing will serve the teacher 
as a geographical framework for the distribution of the larger 
facts of our history. He will need, however, to add addi- 
tional features relating to climate and natural productions. 
He can make the map more minute when he has passed 
beyond general outlines and entered upon details. For 
example, he can place the Ohio Valley in situ when deal- 
ing with the French and Indian War; the Rio Grande, 
when teaching the war with Mexico ; the Cumberland and 
Tennessee, in connection with the campaigns of Sherman 
and Grant. 

Every competent teacher of American history must carry 
in his mind a sketch map of the continent, and he must 
steadily aim to develop one in the minds of his pupils ; but 
it will not come amiss again to remind him that conspec- 
tuses, or bird's-eye views, of large subjects belong rather to 
the later than to the earlier stages of study. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 

References. — Bancroft, Hildreth, Bryant and Gay, and Winsor : 
Previous references ; Parkman : Pioneers of France in the New 
World, The Jesuits in North America, La Salle and the Discovery of 
the Great West, The Old Regime in Canada, Count Frontenac and 
France under Louis XIV", A Half Century of Conflict, Montcalm 
and Wolfe ; Doyle, Thwaites, and Lodge : Previous references ; 
Roberts : New York ; Robinson : Vermont ; Cooley : Michigan ; 
(the last three volumes in the Commonwealth Series) ; Campbell : 
Outlines of the Political History of Michigan. 

On the papal bulls and right of discovery — Fiske: The Dis- 
covery of the New World (Vol. I., p. 454, Vol. II., Appendix B) ; 
Winsor: The Narrative and Critical History of America (passim) ; 
Bourne : Papers of the American Historical Association (IV., 169. 
The history and determination of the line of demarcation estab- 
lished by Pope Alexander VI between the Spanish and Portuguese 
fields of discovery and colonization); Scaife: Annual Report of 
the American Historical Association for the Year 1891, p. 103. 
(The development of international law as to newly discovered 
territory) ; Brown : The Genesis of the United States (Preface, In- 
troductory Sketch, 1485-1607) ; Phillimore : Part III., Chap. XII. ; 
Lieber : Miscellaneous Writings, Vol. II., pp. 26-28 ; Poore : Charters 
and Constitutions, Vol. I., p. 304 ; Hinsdale : Ohio Archaeological and 
Historical Quarterly, December, 1888 (The Right of Discovery). 

In the fifteenth century the Pope of Rome, as supreme 
arbiter of the world, assumed to be the custodian and dis- 
penser of all heathen lands. Acting in this capacity, Nico- 
las V, in 1454, gave to the crown of Portugal, in perpetuity, 



THE COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 205 

whatever such, lands she might discover from Cape Bojador, 
on the African coast, eastward to and including the Indies. 
Upon the return of Columbus, in 1493, Alexander VI, on 
the application of Ferdinand and Isabella for a similar dota- 
tion in the West, issued two bulls, dated May 3 and 4, 1493, 
that, taken in connection with those previously issued in the 
interest of Portugal, had this effect : They gave to Spain all 
heathen lands that she had already discovered or might 
thereafter discover, lying west of a line drawn one hundred 
leagues beyond the Azores, or the Cape Verd Islands, and 
confirmed to Portugal all such lands lying east of that line. 
This division did not please King John of Portugal, and so 
the two powers, in 1494, entered into a treaty — commonly 
called the Treaty of Tordesillas, from the place where it was 
negotiated, but sometimes the Treaty for the Partition of the 
Ocean, from its subject-matter — that drew the line of demar- 
cation three hundred and seventy leagues west of the Azores, 
but that did not otherwise disturb the papal arrangements. 
This treaty the two powers, supported by the Pope, who duly 
ratified it, strove earnestly to carry out. But the other 
Western maritime powers, disregarding the treaty and also 
the papal balls, entered into the competition of discovery, 
and ultimately Spain and Portugal were compelled to aban- 
don their exclusive claims and to admit France, England, 
and Holland to the possession of shares in the Western 
World. The Pope's bulls were finally abandoned, and the 
right of discovery became the sole ground of title. When 
fully developed this right embraced the following features : 
1. The Christian nation that discovers a heathen land 
owns it to the exclusion of all other Christian nations. 2. 
This nation must complete its title within a reasonable time 
by occupying and using this land. 3. The native inhab- 
itants are the occupants of the land only. We are now to 
see how this rule was applied in making the first division of 
North America. While the papal bulls were set aside yet 
their influence was great on the course of history. 



206 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

I. The Spaniards in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Spain took prompt possession of the islands at the en- 
trance of the Gulf of Mexico, and at once made them a base 
of operations for further discovery and colonization. In 
1498 Columbus discovered the South American coast near 
the mouth of the Orinoco River, and in twenty years from 
that time Spanish discoverers had traced out, in a general 
way, the whole coast from that point to the Carolinas. In 
1513 Ponce de Leon discovered and named the Peninsula of 
Florida. In 1519 Cortez began the conquest of Mexico, and 
in 1536 Pizarro that of Peru. In 1539 De Soto began his 
long march through the country north of the Gulf of 
Mexico, searching for a throne like that of Montezuma, and 
for riches like the riches of Mexico. In 1540 Coronado be- 
gan his quest for the Seven Cities of Cibola. De Soto started 
from Tampa Bay, Coronado from the Gulf of Mexico ; both 
explorers, who penetrated the Missouri River region before 
returning, were unsuccessful. Besides seating herself firmly 
in Mexico and in Peru, Spain established lines of communi- 
cation across the continent and the Pacific Ocean, reaching 
to the Indies. 

In the sixteenth century Spain had the best opportunity 
ever presented to any nation to take possession of and to 
hold the Mississippi Valley. She held the keys to the Gulf, 
from which she strove to exclude all other powers. By dis- 
covering the mouths of the rivers flowing into the Gulf, and 
particularly of the Mississippi, she laid a foundation for a 
title to the vast region lying between the Appalachian and 
the Cordilleran mountain systems. The portal of the Mis- 
sissippi stood always open to admit her ships, and there was 
no European power that could prevent, or for the time 
wished to prevent, her completing her title by occupation. 
The Lake and St. Lawrence region was more accessible from 
the south than the Mississippi Valley was from the north, be- 
cause the Mississippi has less obstruction from ice. And yet 
Spain did not improve her great opportunity ; in fact, down 



THE COLONIZATION OF NOETH AMERICA. 207 

to 1682 she had done nothing toward taking possession of 
the country lying between the Atlantic and the Rio Grande 
but to found St. Augustine, in 1565, and Santa Fe, in 1582. 
While we congratulate ourselves on the failure of Spain to 
plant her civilization in the Great West, we should inquire 
into its causes. 

These causes are few and simple. The master forces that 
moved the Spaniards in their American undertakings were 
lust for gold and silver and for political and military power. 
The notion that the precious metals are the only real wealth, 
which was then universally received, had such a hold of 
their minds that they despised ordinary industry and trade 
in comparison ; and when De Soto and Coronado had failed 
to find what they so eagerly sought in the regions that they 
visited, those regions lost all immediate interest for their 
countrymen. Probably the men who presided over Spain's 
interests in the New World thought the time would come 
when the Mississippi would be valuable ; but for the time 
being that river had no value in comparison with the metal- 
producing countries of the Aztecs and the Peruvians. Thus 
the mines of those countries held the richest valley in the 
world in pledge, first for France, but ultimately for the 
United States. However, another motive power must be 
mentioned. In the long struggle between Christianity and 
Mohammedanism great zeal for proselyting the infidel and 
the heathen had been developed among the peoples of 
Southern Europe. But while zeal for the conversion of the 
Indians was a considerable factor in Spanish exploration 
and colonization, still of itself it was not strong enough 
to carry them into the Mississippi Valley. The Spaniards 
cut a far more picturesque figure than the English in the 
pages of early American history ; what they did, one has 
said, "was poetry in action, the knight-errantry of the Old 
World carried into the depths of the American wilderness " ; 
but they lacked the substantial qualities that fitted them to 
receive so great a heritage as the Mississippi Valley. In 
truth, Spain took little interest in Florida save as its pos- 



208 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

session was necessary to the mastery of the islands of the 
Gulf and to the control of the sea routes leading from the 
Spanish ports to Vera Cruz and Cartagena. St. Augustine 
was a bulwark of both the West Indian and the East Indian 
seas. This explains the vigor with which Spain drove the 
Huguenots out of the peninsula, and the firmness with which 
she resisted the advance of the English toward the Grulf of 
Mexico. 

II. The French in the Lake and St. Lawrence Basin. 

At first France claimed the whole front of the continent 
north of Florida, basing her claim upon Verrazzano's voyage 
of 1524, but in the end she abandoned the southern and cen- 
tral parts of it to her competitors. Her first permanent col- 
ony was Port Royal, now Annapolis, planted in 1605. But 
Champlain persuaded the King of France that the St. Law- 
rence, to which Cartier's voyages of 1534, 1535, and 1540 had 
given him a title, was the proper center of his American 
empire. So Champlain was commissioned to effect the 
necessary change of base, and in doing so he won the title, 
"Father of New France." How wisely he had judged, a 
general view of the ideas and motives of the French in con- 
nection with the opportunities that the St. Lawrence opened 
to them will show. These ideas were the glory of France, 
the fur trade, and the salvation of the savages. Sometimes 
these ideas were all embodied in the same man ; but properly 
the discoverer, explorer, or soldier stood for political and 
military dominion, the hunter and trader for the Indian 
trade, and the priest for Indian missions. 

Champlain founded Quebec in 1608. The next year he 
ascended the Richelieu, and discovered the lake to which he 
gave his name. His plan was to bring within the circle of 
French colonization and influence the whole region extend- 
ing southward from the St. Lawrence toward the mouth of 
the Hudson. But, unfortunately for his purposes, he en- 
countered a war party of the Mohawk Indians near the 
head of the lake ; and although he defeated them in battle, 



THE COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 209 

he was so impressed by the prowess that they had shown, by 
what he heard of the confederacy to which they belonged, 
and by the hostility of this confederacy toward the Indians 
of the north, who were his allies, that on his return to Que- 
bec he changed his policy. Had he succeeded in his first 
purpose, France would have seated herself on the streams 
that flow to the lower lakes and the St, Lawrence, to New 
York, Delaware, and Chesapeake Bays, and to the Ohio River. 
Both General Scott and General Grant, it is said, have called 
this region the key to the continent east of the Mississippi. 
Had France seized it, we know not with what difficulty it 
would have been wrenched from her hand, if at all. The 
Indian skirmish, so far as we can tell, alone prevented this 
issue. Still more, this skirmish was the beginning of the 
long hostility of the Iroquois toward the French, which is 
such an important factor in our history. It is also worthy 
of remark that this formidable confederation owed its 
power to the great advantages of its position, as well as to 
its statesmanship and valor. Not only were its lands pro- 
ductive, but the Confederates could, within their own terri- 
tories in central New York, launch their canoes on waters 
that would bear them to any point of the compass. Hence 
it was in great part that they were able to carry the terror 
of their arms to the Carolinas, the Tennessee, and the Mis- 
sissippi, to the upper lakes, and the lower St. Lawrence. 

Champlain's second plan was to explore and to bring 
within the circle of French influence the country north of 
the St. Lawrence. Here furs were more abundant than in 
the south, and the savages, who proved friendly to the 
French and were hostile to the Iroquois, stood in equal need 
of salvation. 

Montreal, situated on the St. Lawrence near the mouths 
of the Richelieu and the Ottawa, dates from the year 1611. 
In 1615 Champlain ascended the Ottawa, crossed the por- 
tage to Lake Nipissing, and made his way by French River 
and Georgian Bay to Lake Huron. On his return to Que- 
bec the next year he discovered Lake Ontario. The Ottawa 



210 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

was the thoroughfare by which the Indians were accustomed 
to pass between the St. Lawrence and the upper lakes. It 
was comparatively free from the incursions of the Iroquois ; 
it lay through a friendly country, and it was much shorter 
than the road by the St. Lawrence and the lower lakes. 
Naturally, therefore, it long continued the great route by 
which the French passed and repassed between their posts 
on the St. Lawrence and the Northwest. A well-known 
geologist who has recently visited parts of this route says 
it is " exciting to see with our own eyes direct evidence that 
the engineers of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, when fol- 
lowing the trail of Champlain. . . were not only paying 
tribute to the skill of the Indians in selecting the lowest 
passes from one valley to another, but were also unsuspect- 
edly utilizing one of the most remarkable of Nature's high- 
ways." 

In 1629 Brule visited Lake Superior. In 1631 Nicolet 
passed through the Straits of Mackinaw and discovered Lake 
Michigan and Green Bay. In 1659-60 Groseilliers and 
Radisson reached the country beyond the head of Lake 
Superior. The French first heard of Lake Erie about 1640 ; 
but it was not until 1669 that Joliet, on returning from Lake 
Superior, descended the water connection between Lake 
Huron and Lake Erie, and thus demonstrated the connec- 
tion between the upper and the lower lakes. In 1671, Saint- 
Lusson, at the Sault Ste. Marie, acting in the name of Louis 
XIV of France, took formal possession of the lakes, rivers, 
and islands of the Northwest, extending to the sea in every 
direction. About the same time La Salle discovered the 
Ohio. In 1673 Marquette and Joliet, starting from Green 
Bay, ascended Fox River, crossed the portage, descended the 
Wisconsin to the Mississippi, down which they floated until 
they had passed the mouth of the Arkansas, and satisfied 
themselves that the river did not flow to the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia or to Chesapeake Bay, but to the Gulf of Mexico ; 
then they returned to the North by the Illinois River and 
Lake Michigan. In the winter of 1679-80 La Salle ascended 



THE COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 211 

the St* Josephs, crossed to the Kankakee, and paddled his 
way down the Illinois to Peoria Lake. Two years later the 
same intrepid explorer descended the Illinois and the Missis- 
sippi to the Gulf of Mexico. On April 9, 1682, he took pos- 
session of the Mississippi Valley, in the name of his royal 
master, Louis XIV. About the same time Hennepin made 
further discoveries in the region of the upper Mississippi. 
In 1742-'43 the brothers La Verendrye, starting from the 
French settlements in the Winnipeg country, conducted an 
expedition westward, in the course of which they discovered 
the Rocky Mountains.* 

While this bare outline sacrifices all the interest and 
charm of French discovery and exploration, it answers the 
present purpose. Never did a great opportunity of the kind 
fall into hands better fitted to make the most of it. No 
sooner had the French made their feeble beginnings on the 
St. Lawrence, than they pierced the center of the chain of 
the Great Lakes, pushed their discoveries to their farthest 
limits, crossed the easy portages connecting the interlocked 
systems of waters, and made their way to the Rocky Moun- 
tains and to the Gulf of Mexico. This they did in the short 
space of seventy-four years, with a powerful savage foe con- 
stantly hanging upon their flank and rear. Had such a 
mountain system as the Appalachian stood along the south- 
ern margin of the Lake Basin, no man can conjecture in what 
different lines early American history might have run. 

Wherever they went the French took such pains as they 
thought necessary to secure and hold the country. For ex- 
ample, missions were established among the Hurons in 1615, 
at Sault Ste. Marie in 1668, at Mackinaw in 1671, and also at 
St. Esprit, near the head of Lake Superior, and at Green 
Bay. These missions answered as well the purposes of trad- 
ing posts and military stations, thus illustrating the close 
connection of the three ideas lying at the foundation of New 
France. 

* The southern continuation of these mountains had long heen known 
to the Spaniards. 



212 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

III. The English on the Atlantic Plain. 

The English, rested their claim to the Atlantic Plain on 
the Cabot voyages of 1497 and 1498. The evidence tends to 
show that Spain never claimed the country north of the 
forty-fourth parallel, and that England for nearly a century 
showed no disposition to intrude south of that line. But in 
1580, on the return of Sir Francis Drake from his voyage 
around the world, Queen Elizabeth's government informed 
the King of Spain that it could not acknowledge the Spanish 
right to all that country, either by donation by the Pope or 
from their having touched here and there upon those coasts. 
From this time England was a strong advocate of posses- 
sion or use as a factor in the right of discovery. She 
now entered into competition with Spain south of the 44° 
line. Sir Walter Raleigh's attempts to plant colonies failed, 
but Jamestown and Plymouth proved successful. In 1526, 
and again in 1570, Spain had attempted to occupy Chesa- 
peake Bay, but fortunately failed. In 1611 a Spanish armed 
force hovered off Jamestown, but, learning that the settle- 
ment would probably perish of disease and famine if let 
alone, it sailed away without molesting the feeble colony. 
Progressively, England occupied the coast from Maine to 
Florida, Georgia, the last of the thirteen colonies, owing its 
existence in part to the felt need of a bulwark between the 
Spaniards and the Carolinas. Spain steadily resisted the 
southward extension of the English colonies, and no definite 
line of demarcation between them and Florida had been 
fixed down to 1763. 

While the English laid a firm hand upon the Atlantic 
Plain, they were very slow in finding their way toward the 
mountains that separated them from the interior of the 
continent. The Virginians did not discover the Shenandoah 
Valley until 1716, and they did not plant a settlement on the 
waters flowing to the Mississippi until the middle of the 
eighteenth century. Englishmen bore no part or lot in the 
discovery and exploration of the Great West. Why did 



THE COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 213 

they so long linger almost within cannon shot of the shore 
line ? "Why did they not sooner enter into the Western com- 
petition with the French ? 

In the first place, what the Indians called " the Endless 
Mountains " for a long time effectually stopped their west- 
ward progress. In dealing with this subject, Professor 
Shaler remarks that, although the Appalachian peaks are 
not of great height, their ranges are singularly continuous, 
and that the passes did not afford for the pioneer any natu- 
ral means of passage ; he must climb over the mountain 
ridges. Then, from Maine to Alabama the forests were 
dense and unbroken, while the ground north of central 
Pennsylvania was strewn thick with bowlders. The Appa- 
lachians' barrier of forest and mountain, he says, was almost 
as impassable as the Alps. In the North, the Hudson and 
Mohawk Valleys offered a comparatively easy path to the 
lower lakes, although the Mohawk is not a navigable stream, 
but potent causes long prevented its utilization. In the 
second place, the mountains served to confirm Englishmen 
in the opinion, which was early formed, that North America 
was a long but narrow island lying between two oceans. But 
the third cause was more powerful than both the others ; it 
was the fundamental ideas or motives of the English colo- 
nists. England sent her cavaliers to Virginia, her Puritans 
to Massachusetts Bay, and these colonies became distribut- 
ing centers for the whole Atlantic Plain. While different 
in minor particulars, the Northern and Southern colonies 
alike possessed the great qualities of the English character. 
They showed some picturesque features; they made what 
they could out of the Indian trade, and took a feeble interest 
in Indian evangelization ; but they were interested in indus- 
trial, commercial, and political life ; they created farms and 
plantations, founded villages and towns, built ships in which 
they carried on deep-sea fisheries or sent their products to 
Europe or the West Indies, and, above all, established free 
commonwealths on the English model. Englishmen had 
been much less affected than the Spaniards and Frenchmen 



214 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

by the Mohammedan conflict ; they were already beginning 
to break up into a diversity of churches and sects, and so it 
was perfectly natural that the characteristic religious feature 
of the English colonies was not zeal for the souls of the In- 
dians, but zeal for religious freedom and the rights of con- 
science for themselves, as in New England and Maryland. 
While the life of the New England villagers, the New York 
and Pennsylvania farmers, and the Virginia planters was 
tame and prosaic as compared with the life of New France or 
of New Spain, it was stronger, more modern, more permanent, 
having the promise of the future of the continent. Mr. 
Lowell tells us that, " looked at on the outside, New Eng- 
land history is dry and unpicturesque. There is no rustle 
of silks, no waving of plumes, no clink of golden spurs. 
Our sympathies are not awakened by the changeful des- 
tinies, the rise and fall of great families, whose doom is in 
their blood. Instead of all this, we have the homespun 
fates of Cephas and Prudence repeated in an infinite series 
of peaceable sameness, and finding space enough for record 
in the family Bible ; we have the noise of axe and hammer 
and saw, an apotheosis of dogged work, where, reversing 
the fairy tale, nothing is left to luck, and, if there be 
any poetry, it is something that can not be helped — 
the waste of the water over the dam. " And it was New 
England that bore the brunt of the long struggle with 
New France. 

IV. The French and the English Colonies in Contrast. 

It is very pertinent to observe that the three regions 
now described harmonized well with the character of the 
three nationalities to which they severally fell, and tended 
to foster their ruling ideas. The Spaniard found what he 
sought in the South, the Frenchman in the North, while 
the Englishman possessed the environment that best suited 
him on the Atlantic Plain. History would have run in 
quite different lines if the three regions had been differ- 
ently distributed. In respect to the French and the Eng- 



THE COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 215 

lish colonies the parallel should be traced a little dis- 
tance. 

How advantageous the French position was for carrying 
on exploration, the fur trade, and Indian missions we have 
seen already. The opportunities of the French developed 
resource, capacity for dealing with the savages, hardihood 
and romance, but they did not develop either a numerous 
people or a strong state. New France was founded by com- 
mercial companies, but it soon passed into the hands of the 
Crown. Planted by power and nourished by patronage, it 
never became self-sufficing, but always continued a tax 
upon the mother country. Both the virtues and the vices 
of absolutism nourished : courage, devotion, and chivalry ; 
ignorance, corruption, and dependence. The population in- 
creased very slowly, and was thinly scattered through vast 
wildernesses, where much of its strength was lost. Even 
the St. Lawrence settlements were few, small, and widely 
separated. Such were the attractions of the woods and the 
waters for the Canadians that large numbers of them adopt- 
ed a forest life much like that of the Indians — becoming 
hunters, or coureurs de bois — thus adding to the picturesque- 
ness of Canada, but also constantly draining away its life- 
blood. These tendencies were further stimulated by facts 
yet to be mentioned. 

In respect to regular and productive industry, the French 
colonists were at a disadvantage as compared with their Eng- 
lish competitors. In marking the contrast Professor Shaler 
states the following points : 

1. The rapids of the St. Lawrence, the cataract of Niagara, 
and the storms of the Great Lakes which have few natural 
harbors, and, moreover, the cold that closes up these bodies of 
water five months of every year, were a decided drawback 
to the advantages that the great Northern water-way would 
otherwise have offered. 

2. The long and severe winters, which limited the time 
that could be given to tillage, and made the keeping of do- 
mestic animals difficult, were a great hindrance. 

16 



216 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

3. The soil of Canada consisted of drift, and could be 
fitted for tillage only by a great amount of labor. To clear 
away the stones, to say nothing of cutting away the forests, 
was a costly process. Then the St. Lawrence lands were far 
inferior in quality to those farther south. 

4. The French beginnings lay north of the corn-pro- 
ducing ' region, so that the people were without that 
cheap and nutritious food. At the South this grain and 
its universal concomitant long furnished the food sta- 
ples. "Maize fields, with pumpkin vines in the inter- 
stices of the plants, became for many years the pre- 
vailing, indeed almost the only, crop throughout the 
northern part of America. It is hardly too much to 
say that, but for these American plants and the Ameri- 
can method of tilling them, it would have been decidedly 
more difficult to have fixed the early colonies on this 
shore." 

5. Tobacco, which did so much to enrich some of the 
English colonies, cou]d not be produced at the North as an 
article of commerce. Nor was there any other agricultural 
staple that could take its place. 

These hard conditions constantly tended to retard the 
increase of population, and also to disperse such as there was 
on the shores where fish could be caught, or in the wilder- 
ness where beaver could be trapped. The result was that 
Canada grew up as weak in industrial, commercial, and 
civic qualities as she was strong in military qualities and in 
adventure. A great community could not be founded on 
the fur trade. 

On the Atlantic Plain some of the obstacles that the 
French encountered were also present. In the North the 
climate was severe, the drift extended as far south as central 
Pennsylvania, while the forests were heavy. Still, on the 
whole, all the forces that were at work tended in directions 
just the opposite of those that have been traced out : geo- 
graphical environment, the possibilities of agriculture and 
trade, the opportunities for commerce, fear of the Indians 



THE COLONIZATION OF NORTH AMERICA. 217 

and the French, and the character of the people. Popula- 
tion, instead of spreading into the interior, was confined to 
the shore, where it became relatively numerous and thick, 
rich and prosperous. There were no English posts like the 
missions of Sault Ste. Marie and St. Esprit, no class like the 
coureurs de bois. Hunters and Indian fighters of the type 
of Boone and Kenton, Wetzel and Brady, did not appear 
until the Endless Mountains had been passed. After re- 
marking that the proselyting spirit was far weaker in Eng- 
land than on the Continent, while the commercial spirit 
was far stronger, Professor Shaler says the English colonies 
in the New World " consisted of people who came to stay, to 
breed upon the ground, and to found New Englands on the 
foreign shore. Though in part led by religious convictions, 
seeking a haven for peculiar creeds, they were on the whole 
commercially minded — true colonists in their intent, as were 
the Greeks in their time, or their ruder imitators, the North- 
men, in a later age." The causes that have been mentioned 
confined the English colonists between the mountains and 
the sea until, by reason of their growth, strength, and 
civic education, they had prepared themselves to contest 
the possession of the Great West, first with France and 
afterward with England and Spain. Professor Shaler has 
well said : 

There was a certain advantage arising from the hemming in of 
the British colonies in North America by the Appalachian bound- 
ary. In place of the detached settlements which characterized the 
Spanish, and more particularly the French plantations, the British 
colonial establishments were, by their geographical conditions, 
compelled to develop in a more connected way. It was possible 
in 1700 to ride from Portland, Me., to southern Virginia, sleep- 
ing each night in some considerable village. If our ancestors on 
the continent had secured a ready access to the interior, it is 
likely that a hundred years [more] would have gone by before the 
colonists became sufficiently dense in population to permit the 
interactive life which prepared the way for the American Revolu- 
tion. 



218 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

There could be no better test of the meaning" of New 
France and of the meaning of the English colonies than is 
furnished by the statistics of their population. In 1754 all 
New France contained 80,000 white inhabitants, the thirteen 
English colonies 1,160,000. The disparity in wealth must 
have been even greater. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH 

AMERICA. 

References. — Bancroft, Hildreth, Bryant and Gay, Winsor, Park- 
man, Campbell, Roberts, Robinson, and Cooley : Previous references ; 
Fernow : The Ohio Valley in Colonial Days ; Fiske : American Po- 
litical Ideas, pp. 54r-56, 125 ; Chalmers : A Collection of Treaties be- 
tween Great Britain and other Powers. 

On the subjects treated in Chaps. XIV.-XVIIL, inclusive, the 
author "refers to his own work, entitled The Old Northwest, with a 
View of the Thirteen Colonies as constituted by the Royal Charters 
(I. North America in Outline; II. The First Division of North 
America ; III. The French discover the Northwest ; IV. The French 
colonize the Northwest; V. England wrests the Northwest from 
France; VI- VII. The Thirteen Colonies as constituted by the 
Royal Charters; IX. The Northwest in the Revolution; X. The 
United States wrest the Northwest from England). 

This struggle was a necessary outgrowth of causes that 
lie upon the surface. First, the character and interests of 
the two nations were so diverse that only an occasion was 
necessary to bring them into armed collision ; Second, the 
maritime discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
greatly multiplied their points of friction; Third, the op- 
posite tendencies and characters of the French and the Eng- 
lish colonies in America, and, fourthly, their geographical 
relations, made lasting peace between them impossible. 
Some leading features of the long struggle will be passed in 
review. 

ArgalFs exploits at Mount Desert and Port Royal in 1612, 



220 nOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

and Kirk's capture of Quebec in 1629, require nothing more 
than mention. Before the next trial of arms the governors 
of Canada had formed the policy that they pursued to the 
end, and that must be briefly described. 

Champlain hoped that the St. Lawrence might prove a 
road to China, and La Salle for a time saw the same vision. 
But on the discovery of the Mississippi, and of its general re- 
lations to the Lake Basin, to the Atlantic Plain, and the 
Gulf of Mexico, La Salle conceived a new plan. This was 
to make the Mississippi the center of New France, with one 
flank resting on the Gulf of Mexico and the other on the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence. These extreme points should be 
bound together by a chain of settlements and posts stretch- 
ing through the intervening wilderness. If France could 
hold the two keys to the interior of the continent and could 
securely bind them together, she could shut the Spaniards 
up in Mexico and confine the English to their narrow shore. 
To carry out this plan it was necessary to bring the Indians 
of the West within the circle of French influence, and, since 
the Iroquois could not be placated, to break their power. 
Such was the scheme that finally brought England and 
France into conflict in the Ohio Valley and on Lake On- 
tario. 

England claimed the whole breadth of the continent 
from Maine to Georgia, but she took no steps to complete 
her title. She had, in fact, no colonial policy, and long 
trusted her interests to the logic of events. As early as 1685 
Governor Dongan, of New York, divined the French policy 
and strove to frustrate it. He proposed that the English 
should penetrate the Northwest by the Mohawk Valley and 
Lake Erie, and thus inclose the French in the St. Lawrence 
Basin. In 1686 and 1687 parties of English and Dutch 
traders, escorted by Iroquois warriors, attempted to ascend 
to the upper lakes ; but the French, although it was a 
time of peace, seized them or turned them back homeward. 
Soon afterward the French closed the passage from the lower 
to the upper lakes. Moreover, the Iroquois did not kindly 



STKUGGLE BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 221 

brook the intrusion even of their friends within their terri- 
tories. Thus, the French and the Iroquois stopped the Eng- 
lish at the North quite as effectually as the mountains stopped 
them at the South. Still, it must be said that about this time 
originated the claim that the Five Nations were subjects of 
England, and so under her protection — a claim out of which 
great results afterward grew. The commission of Andros, 
who succeeded Dongan as Governor of New York, embraced 
the whole country reaching to the Pacific Ocean. 

Warlike operations in the time of Argall and Kirk were 
necessarily confined to the water. King William's War, 
(1689-97) reveals some new features. The French and In- 
dians, moving along the water courses and through the de- 
files of the wilderness, for the first time fell upon and 
destroyed outlying English settlements.* The New Eng- 
land colonies and New York attempted to dispatch a feeble 
force against Montreal, but it did not go beyond the head of 
Lake Champlain. A French expedition projected against 
Albany and New York also came to nothing. Thus early 
did the rival colonies find the great cleft of the mountain 

* Mr. E. E. Eobinson, author of Vermont, in the Commonwealth Series, 
has graphically described the northern highway of war. " Different routes 
were taken by the predatory bands in their descents upon the frontiers of 
New England. One was by the St. Francis Eiver and Lake Memphrema- 
gog, thence to the Passumpsic, and down that river to the Connecticut, that 
gave an easy route to the settlements. Another was up the Winooski and 
down "White Eiver to the Connecticut. Another left Lake Champlain at 
the mouth of Great Otter Creek ; then up its slow lower reaches to where 
it becomes a swift mountain stream, when the trail led to West Eiver, or 
Wantasticook, emptying into the Connecticut. And still another way to 
West Eiver and the Connecticut was from the head of the lake up the 
Pawlet Eiver. Of these routes, that by the Winooski was so frequently 
taken that the English named the stream the Erench Eiver ; while that of 
which Otter Creek was a part, being the easiest and the nearest to Crown 
Point, was perhaps the oftenest used, and was commonly known as the ' In- 
dian road.' All these warpaths, familiar to every Waubanakee warrior 
with every stream and landmark bearing names which his fathers had 
given them, led through Vermont, then only known to English-speaking 
men as ' The Wilderness.' " — (Pages 10, 11.) 



222 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

system extending from New York Bay to the St. Lawrence, 
which has been a highway of war ever since whenever the 
people of the two regions have been engaged in hostilities. 
In 1696 Fort Frontenac was built, where Kingston now 
stands — or rather it was rebuilt, for it had once been de- 
stroyed. The purpose of the Governor of Canada in build- 
ing this post was to secure the alliance of the friendly Indi- 
ans, to overawe the Iroquois, to carry on the fur trade, and 
to command the outlet to Lake Ontario. It played an im- 
portant part in wilderness history. At the conclusion of 
peace, Count Frontenac, the French governor, had seriously 
weakened the power of the Five Nations, had confirmed and 
extended his alliances with the Indians of the West, had re- 
pelled the English theory of Iroquois sovereignity, and had 
put matters in fine train for the further development of the 
French policy. Dongan's plan had completely failed. 

In the short interval of peace, Count Frontenac took an- 
other important step. In 1686 he caused De Luht to con- 
struct Fort St. Joseph at the head of Ste. Claire Eiver, and in 
1701 he sent Cadillac to plant the colony and build the 
stockade of Detroit. These posts securely closed the North- 
west to the English. 

In Queen Anne's War (1702-'13) the English made an- 
other ineffectual attempt to strike Canada by the way of 
Lake Champlain. At the treaty of Utrecht France ceded 
to England Newfoundland, and Acadia with its ancient 
boundaries ; and, what was still more important in our view, 
she formally admitted that the Five Nations or Cantons 
were subjects of Great Britain. 

Years before war again broke out both sides were taking 
steps that made war still more certain. In 1720, Vaudreuil, 
Governor of Canada, built at the mouth of the Niagara Eiver 
a fort of the same name, near the spot that had once been 
occupied by La Salle. Of all points on the lakes this was 
now the most important one for the French to hold. In 
1732, Governor Burnett, of New York, in order to throw up 
a bulwark between the Iroquois and Canada, constructed a 



STEUGGLE BETWEEN FKANCE AND ENGLAND. 223 

fortified trading post at the mouth of the Oswego Kiver. 
. This was the first time that the English had made even a 
beginning on the chain of Great Lakes ; the French had 
made their beginnings more than one hundred years before. 
Oswego was intended as an answer to Forts Frontenac and 
Niagara, and it foretold the day when an English flotilla and 
army would descend the St. Lawrence to the conquest of 
Canada. In the meantime the rival colonies were feeling 
their way toward Lake Champlain. The English established 
settlements and posts on the upper Connecticut, in western 
Massachusetts, in southern Vermont, and in the wilderness 
where lie the sources of Lakes George and Champlain. In 
1665 the French had occupied Isle La Motte, and in 1730-31 
they seized the narrows of Lake Champlain and constructed 
the formidable Fort Frederic, at Crown Point. This act 
planted them in " the gate of the country," as the Iroquois 
called the lake, along both sides of which French settle- 
ments began slowly to spread. The French had now fully 
taken up La Salle's original idea. In the far West also 
France was fortifying her right with might. As early as 
1735 French colonists crossed the Kankakee portage to the 
Wabash Valley, where they planted a long, thin line of 
settlements, of which Vincennes was the chief. Afterward 
these colonists reached Canada by the St. Marys, the Maumee, 
and Lake Erie. Still other settlements and fortified posts 
were established on the Illinois and the Mississippi Eivers, 
on the Tennessee and the Alabama. Only one great river 
valley the possession of which was essential to her policy 
had France failed to secure down to 1744. 

King George's War (1744-'48) was marked by the old 
features : naval battles, French and Indian forays, and fu- 
tile schemes to invade Canada by Lake Champlain. The 
treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored all conquests that had 
been made in the course of the war on either side, and as its 
negotiators could not agree upon boundary lines, and par- 
ticularly upon the ancient boundaries of Acadia, they re- 
ferred such questions to a joint commission, which, however, 



224 H ^W TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

could not agree, and so accomplished nothing. The truth 
is, the relations of the two powers in America had "become 
so strained that only the sword could render a decisive ver- 
dict. The peace was therefore of short duration. 

The time had finally come for the English colonists to 
show a real interest in the country beyond the mountains. 
For some time the hunter and trader had been following 
the deer through the mountain passes to the streams flowing 
to the Mississippi, and now the explorer and the pioneer 
began to follow the hunter and trader. In 1748 Dr. 
Walker, with a company of Virginians, made his way into 
the West, discovering and naming the Cumberland Moun- 
tains and Cumberland and Louisa Rivers. In the same 
year the first transmontane settlement was made, at Draper's 
Meadow, on New River, a branch of the Kanawha. In 1748 
also the Ohio Company was formed ; it obtained a grant of 
five hundred thousand acres of land on the Kanawha and 
Monongahela Rivers, and ordered large shipments of goods 
from London, preparatory to embarking in land speculation 
and in the Indian trade. About the same time the Will's 
Creek route from the Potomac to the Ohio was discovered. 
In 1750-51 Christopher Gist, an agent of the Ohio Com- 
pany, explored both sides of the Ohio for a considerable dis- 
tance below the forks. The Indians occupying the country 
between the Ohio and Lake Erie were found generally 
friendly to the English, and the Pennsylvanians and Vir- 
ginians carried on a large trade with them. 

While the French and Indian War was only the Ameri- 
can side of the Seven Years' War, it began before hostilities 
broke out in Europe and originated in a purely American 
issue. This was the line of demarcation between Canada 
and her dependencies and the English colonies. France 
proposed a geographical boundary. She claimed that all 
countries drained by streams falling into the St. Lawrence, 
the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi should belong to Canada. 
This would have planted her securely on the ridges and 
mountain crests separating the Lake and St. Lawrence Basin 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 225 

and the Mississippi Valley from the Atlantic slope, giving 
France all the interior of the continent, and leaving nothing 
to England but her old strip of seacoast. The accomplish- 
ment of this claim would be the full realization of the policy 
that she had so long pursued. France rested her claim on 
the work of her discoveries and explorers, missionaries, and 
bushrangers. Moreover, it must be admitted that this was a 
reasonable title compared with the claim that England now 
advanced. That power now practically abandoned the Cabot 
title to the whole breadth of the continent, and brought for- 
ward a new one. In 1684 the Iroquois had placed them- 
selves under the protection of the Duke of York and of 
Charles II ; in 1713 the French had solemnly admitted that 
the Five Tribes were subjects of Great Britain; in 1726 the 
tribes conveyed to England their lands in trust for the 
grantors, with little sense, no doubt, of what tbey were 
doing. Nor was this all: the Iroquois claimed all territories 
that their war parties had overrun, and the English now set 
up the claim that they stood in the same relation to these 
territories that they did to the original Iroquois lands in 
New York. This was claiming not only the country be- 
tween the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, but also that be- 
tween Lakes Erie and Huron and the Ottawa River, for this 
region was also an Iroquois conquest dating from the de- 
struction of the Huron missions. Indeed, the Tribes had 
formally ceded it all to the English, including Detroit; still 
further, in 1744 they made to Virginia a deed that covered a 
large part of the whole West. 

As we have seen, the French had strung a long line of 
posts through the "Western wilderness, extending from the 
St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, resting their claim 
upon discovery and occupancy. The English now made 
ready to cross the mountains in force, pleading their Iro- 
quois title. Given all the factors that have been enumerated 
as national and colonial characters and tendencies and geo- 
graphical relations, the great contest of arms that now came 
on was inevitable. 



226 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

French America had two heads — one among the snows of Canada, 
and one among the canebrakes of Louisiana ; one communicating 
with the world through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other 
through the Gulf of Mexico. These vital points were feebly con- 
nected by a chain of military posts, slender and often interrupted, 
circling through the wilderness nearly three thousand miles. Mid- 
way between Canada and Louisiana lay the valley of the Ohio. 
If the English should seize it, they would sever the chain of posts 
and cut French America asunder. If the French held it, and en- 
trenched themselves well along its eastern limits, they would shut 
their rivals between the Alleghanies and the sea, control all the tribes 
of the West, and turn them, in case of war, against the English 
borders — a frightful and insupportable scourge.* 

Mr. Parkman here reveals the one step necessary to her 
policy that France had neglected to take ; she had not seized 
and fortified the forks of the Ohio. This position was ab- 
solutely essential to the control of that river, and ultimately 
even to the control of the Mississippi itself. Why, then, 
had not France placed herself in that gateway as promptly 
as she had occupied the portals of the Niagara and the 
Detroit ? The answer to this question is, that the position 
was an exposed one — the attempt to hold it dangerous. Its 
possession would necessitate a line of communications ex- 
tending from Canada by the foot of Lake Erie and the 
Alleghany River to the forks — a long line that could be 
easily struck and "broken, unless made very strong indeed, 
by any one of the colonies, New York, Pennsylvania, or Vir- 
ginia, to say nothing of the Iroquois. Then it lay well with- 
in the region that England claimed. So France deferred 
seizing the country lying between Lake Erie and the Ohio 
River as long as possible, in the meantime establishing 
connections between the two heads of New France farther 
to the West. It is a significant fact that Frenchmen had 
explored and mapped the far Northwest, Michigan, and 
Illinois, long before they had any definite knowledge of the 

* Parkman : Montcalm and "Wolf, vol. i, pp. 39, 40. 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 227 

present State of Ohio. But the logic of events had now 
brought things to such a pass that she could no longer hesi- 
tate to act. 

It may be again remarked that it is not easy to exagger- 
ate the part that the Iroquois played in early American 
history. Mr. Parkman has shown very plainly that if 
France could have brought these haughty tribes under her 
full influence, American history would have reached its 
destined goal, but by different routes from those actually 
followed. An Indian empire ruled by French priests would 
have occupied the Mississippi Valley ; war would have been 
repressed and agriculture encouraged ; the West would have 
been cut up into fiefs and feudalism established ; the Eng- 
lish colonies would have been longer confined to the At- 
lantic Plain ; when the final conflict drew on, absolutism 
would have opposed to them a much stronger resistance, and 
American independence would have been deferred, how 
long no one can tell, not to speak of the later modifying 
influence of French ideas upon American civilization. As 
it was, the Five Nations constantly weakened Canada, and 
retarded the growth of French absolutism until English 
liberty became equal to the final struggle.* 

The Walker expedition, the Draper settlement on New 
River, the Ohio Company, Gist's explorations, and the pacific 
temper of the Ohio Indians have already been mentioned. 
The Pennsylvanians also were beginning to find their way 
over the mountains. So in 1749 Governor Galissoniere 
sent Bienville from Canada by Lake Chautauqua and the 
Alleghany into the Ohio Valley, directing him to take pos- 
session of it in the name of France, to placate the Indians, 
and to thwart the English. In 1753 Duquesne sent a force 
to seize and hold French Creek and the upper Alleghany. 
Early in 1754 a small force of Virginians occupied and be- 
gan to fortify the forks of the Ohio : but before they had 
finished their work a much stronger French force descended 

* The Jesuits in North America, pp. 446-449. 



228 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

the Alleghany, seized the Virginians, and proceeded to con- 
struct Fort Duquesne. This act placed France at once in 
the doorway of the West and precipitated the final conflict. 
The next year Braddock advanced against Duquesne with a 
view of cutting New France asunder, hut his army was de- 
feated and himself killed on the Monongahela. 

The war had not far advanced heforethe English Cabinet 
was dominated by a statesman who had a clear American 
policy, and the vigor necessary to carry it into execution. 
William Pitt proposed nothing less than the conquest of 
Canada, and the war now assumed that form. To Canada 
there were three lines of approach. The first was the Gulf 
and River St. Lawrence, guarded by the fortifications of 
Louisburg and Quebec. The second was Lakes George and 
Champlain and the River Richelieu — a route that the 
French, not content with their previous precautions, quickly 
safe-guarded by constructing the fortress of Ticonderoga. 
The third route led from Oswego, by Lake Ontario and the 
upper St. Lawrence, to the heart of Canada. The shifting 
scenes of the long war need not here be even sketched. 
Considering alone the great disparity of the French and 
English colonies in numbers and in wealth, we should be 
surprised that the contest continued nine years ; but it is 
important to remember that the French colonies were far 
more effective in war than the English, that they waged a 
defensive struggle, and that they were supported by France, 
as their competitors were by England. It is still more impor- 
tant to observe that by every one of the three routes Nature 
offered the greatest obstacles to the progress of the English 
arms. 

" ' Geography,' says Von Moltke, ' is three fourths of 
military science ' ; and never was the truth of his words 
more fully exemplified. Canada was fortified with vast out- 
works of defense in the savage forests, marshes, and moun- 
tains that encompassed her, where the thoroughfares were 
streams choked with fallen trees and obstructed by cataracts. 
Never was the problem of moving troops encumbered with 



STRUGGLE BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 229 

baggage and artillery a more difficult one. The question 
was less how to fight the enemy than how to get at him. If 
a few practicable roads had crossed this broad track of wil- 
derness, the war would have been shortened and its charac- 
ter changed." * 

All these obstacles were finally overcome ; and in 1760 
Montreal, the last Canadian stronghold, fell before the ad- 
vance of the three English armies that, coming by the three 
different routes, effected a junction in its neighborhood on 
the same day. France now retired from the continent. She 
ceded in 1763 part of her North American possessions to 
England and part to Spain, the Mississippi River and the 
Iberville becoming the boundary between them. 

This rapid view of a contest, the vast consequences of 
which are more fully seen as time goes by, reveals the ele- 
ments of power that were arrayed on either side. As Pro- 
fessor Shaler puts the case : 

Throughout their efforts in North America, the French showed 
a capacity for understanding the large questions of political geog- 
raphy, a genius for exploration, and a talent for making use of its 
results, or guiding their way to dominion, that is in singular con- 
trast with the blundering processes of their English rivals. They 
seem to have understood the possibilities of the Mississippi Valley 
a century and a half before the English began to understand them. 
They planted a system of posts and laid out lines for commerce 
through this region ; they strove to organize the natives into civil- 
ized communities; they did all that the conditions permitted to 
achieve success. Their failure must be attributed to the want of 
colonists, to the essential irreclaimableness of the American savage, 
and to the want of a basis for extended commerce in this country. 
There were no precious metals to tempt men into this wilderness, 
and none of the fancy for life or for lands among the home people 
— that wandering instinct which has been the basis of all the im- 
perial power of the English race. Thus a most cleverly devised 
scheme of continental occupation, which was admirably well adapted 



* Parkman : Montcalm and "Wolfe, vol. ii, pp. 380, 381. 



230 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

to the physical conditions of the country, never came near to suc- 
cess. It fell beneath the clumsy power of another race that had 
the capacity for fixing itself firmly in new lands, and that grew 
without distinct plan until it came to possess it altogether. 

At the critical periods in the long struggle much was 
said by both parties about " their rights " ; but our balanc- 
ing arguments pro and con is little to the purpose, for the 
issue was one that grew out of geography and love of do- 
minion, and hence one that only force could determine. 

Mr. Bancroft says the issue of 1754 was which of the 
two languages should be the mother tongue of the future 
millions of the West — whether the Romanic or the Teutonic 
race should form the seed of its people. The issue was a 
broader one than the destiny of the West — was none other 
than the destiny of the major part of North America. 
Should the institutions of England, or of France and Spain, 
spread over the larger share of its surface ? The immediate 
issue of the war derives most of its significance from a sec- 
ond inevitable conflict to which it soon led. Mr. Fiske has 
called Wolfe's triumph on the Plains of Abraham, which 
really determined the struggle, the greatest turning point in 
modern history ; and Mr. Green assigns the reason when he 
calls this triumph the beginning of the history of the United 
States. 

Note. — The conflicting claims are well shown by Parkman: Fifty 
Years of Conquest, vol. i, p. 204, vol. ii, pp. 63, 273 ; Montcalm and Wolfe, vol. 
i, pp. 37, 61, 79, 122-128, 168, 236-238, 259, vol. ii, p. 86. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

A CONSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

References. — See histories of the United States previously re- 
ferred to. Carrington : Boston and New York, The Battles of the 
Ee volution, The Strategic Relations of New Jersey (these books 
are military studies of the war) ; Gilmore : The Rear Guard of the 
American Revolution ; Roosevelt : Winning the West (particularly 
Chaps. 11., III., IX) ; Perkins : Annals of the West ; Campbell and 
Cooley : Previous references ; Fiske : The American Revolution. 

Lafayette called the Revolution " the grandest of con- 
tests, won by the skirmishes of sentinels and outposts." 
Skirmishes the battles certainly were as compared with the 
great battles of Europe or of our Civil War ; moreover, they 
were so scattered, were fought by so many different men, 
and looked directly to such different ends, that it is not easy 
to bring them together into one general view. The only 
way to overcome the difficulty is : (1) To frame a clear out- 
line map of the whole theater of action, of its several divi- 
sions and their relations ; (2) To perceive clearly not only 
the grand ends of the war — conquest on the one part and 
defense on the other — but also the particular ends of the sev- 
eral divisions of the action ; (3) To concentrate the attention 
on the important points, leaving detail and side incidents to 
fall out of the mind. These observations are, of course, 
equally pertinent to all similar cases. To illustrate them, the 
following conspectus of the Revolution is submitted : 

I. In no other part of the country were American ideas 
so fully developed as in New England. In the march to- 
ward independence, New England led the country, Massa- 
17 



232 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

chusetts led New England, and Boston led Massachusetts. 
To enforce the obnoxious laws, to overawe the province, and 
to check, if possible, the spread of dangerous ideas, the Brit- 
ish ministry had sent four regiments of troops to Boston in 
1768. These troops were received by the people in no 
friendly spirit ; and after the Boston Massacre of March, 
1770, this spirit became more and more pronounced. 

II. Events now moved rapidly in all the colonies. Every 
year saw some fresh act of British aggression and witnessed 
the higher rise of the spirit of resistance. When the royal 
governor dissolved the Massachusetts Legislature, it imme- 
diately reappeared as a provincial congress. There were 
committees of correspondence and committees of safety. In 
various colonies the militia were reorganized, put under 
patriotic captains, and drilled for active duty. Munitions 
of war — powder and ball and cannon — were gathered at 
various convenient places. Everything on the American 
side betokened war, if only the British officers should pro- 
voke it. 

III. General Gage's attempt to destroy the munitions 
that had been gathered at Concord brought on the battle of 
Lexington, April 19, 1775, fired the country, and led to a 
general uprising of the people. Hundreds of armed men 
pressed hard after the British column as it retreated from 
Concord to Boston, and thousands more followed after the 
hundreds. Immediately the British troops were shut in be- 
tween a patriotic host and the sea. In June, Bunker Hill 
was fought. In July, Washington took command of the 
American forces, and at once began to organize into an 
army the motley multitude that had gathered from far and 
near. Month after month he pressed the siege closer and 
closer ; and in March, 1776, General Howe, who had suc- 
ceeded General Gage, finding that his position could no 
longer be defended, put his troops on board the fleet and 
sailed away to Halifax. 

IV. But the war was not over. The ministry dispatched 
the choicest troops of the British army and the finest ships 



A CONSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 233 

of the British navy to America. More than this, it sent over 
thousands of mercenaries hired or bought of the princes of 
Germany. It also summoned to its aid the savage warriors 
of the American forests. But Boston was not again molest- 
ed, nor Massachusetts again invaded to the end of the war. 
Armed resistance to the ministry had extended to all the 
colonies ; and the enemy, on his return, sought a place of 
attack that he thought more suitable for his purpose. 
While the royal forces are gathering at Halifax, we will 
take a glance at the country and people whom they are sent 
to subjugate. 

Y. The thirteen colonies, stretching along the Atlantic 
shore from the Piscataqua to the St. Marys, presented an 
ocean front more than fifteen hundred miles in length. 
This front was cut at short intervals by deep rivers that 
made excellent harbors for commerce, but also offered to an 
enemy ready means of access to the country. Jamestown, 
New York, and Plymouth were each more than one hun- 
dred and fifty years old ; still the settlements were only a 
thin fringe to the continent, and by far the larger part of 
the Atlantic Plain was an unbroken forest. Mr. Bancroft 
estimates the total population at nearly 2,600,000, black and 
white. Virginia was the most populous colony, Georgia the 
least. The three principal cities were Philadelphia and New 
York, each with about 20,000 to 22,000 people, and Boston, 
with only 17,000. Lancaster, Pa., with 1,000 houses and 
6,000 people, was the largest internal town. There were 
few men in the colonies owning property to the amount of 
$200,000. 

VI. If the king's ministers had ever flattered themselves 
that armed resistance to their policy would be local, they 
were quickly undeceived. The conflict which they had 
provoked was not the Boston, or even the Massachusetts, 
rebellion, but the American Revolution. At first there was 
no thought of independence. Such a purpose was directly 
disavowed. The sole object was to resist encroachments on 
ancient rights and to defend ancient privileges. But as the 



234 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

purposes of the king's government became more and more 
distinctly revealed, a desire for separation from the mother 
country took the place of the demand for a redress of griev- 
ances. And so, on July 4, 1776, when there was not a British 
soldier within all their borders, this desire was expressed in 
the Declaration of Independence. 

VII. The States were divided into three zones : New 
England, the Middle States, and the South. The New Eng- 
land States contained about 700,000 white inhabitants, the 
Middle States about the same number, the Southern States 
800,000. Most of the four or five hundred thousand negroes 
were in the South. New England could be assailed from 
Boston and New York ; the Middle States from New York 
and Philadelphia; the South, from Chesapeake Bay, Cape 
Fear River, and Charleston. The British plan of campaign 
for the year 1776 embraced the whole country. Cape Fear 
River was chosen as the base of operations against the South ; 
New York against the middle zone and the East. At the 
same time the ministry more than half expected that the 
States would be smitten with terror at sight of the powerful 
armaments sent against them, and so submit without further 
resistance. 

VIII. Sir Henry Clinton and Sir Peter Parker were sent 
to the South. After collecting their forces in Cape Fear 
River, they bore away to Charleston. But the attack on 
Fort Sullivan failed as signally as the proclamation to the 
people that Clinton issued. Colonel Moultrie gallantly re- 
pulsed Parker's ships, and they sailed away to the North. 
It was more than two full years before the British renewed 
operations in the southern zone. 

IX. New York was the principal point of attack. About 
a week after the adoption of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence a powerful fleet with 30,000 troops on board arrived 
in the bay, and took j)ossession of Staten Island. Lord Howe 
commanded the fleet, and his brother, General Howe, the 
army. Situated at the mouth of the Hudson, the city was 
the gateway to the interior of the State and to Canada. It 



A CONSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 235 

was within easy striking distance of the Connecticut and 
Rhode Island towns. New Jersey lay open to invasion f roin 
the city and bay, and Philadelphia was but ninety miles off 
to the southwest. The richest parts of the country were 
within a few days' march. It was the best center for naval 
operations on the coast. It was the metropolis of a State 
that was full of Tories, and a large number of its own popu- 
lation were loyal to the king. All in all, New York was as 
desirable a point for making war against the people of the 
Atlantic Plain then as it is for carrying on their commerce 
now. 

X. After the British evacuation of Boston Washington 
had hurried to New York, bringing with him as many of 
his troops as possible. He had done his utmost to put the 
city in a state of defense. Some 20,000 men of all kinds, 
mostly undisciplined militia, had been gathered. Fortifica- 
tions had been built at various favorable points below and 
above the city ; but the defenses were insufficient, the stores 
and armaments scanty, the troops too few in numbers and 
too deficient in discipline. Toward the end of August the 
fighting began. The Americans lost the battle of Long 
Island. Washington now withdrew his forces to New York, 
and General Howe soon followed him. Little by little the 
whole island, including Forts Lee and Washington, fell into 
Howe's hands. Before the end of November the British 
commander had fully succeeded in the first object of his 
campaign. New York was his, and so defenseless seemed 
the country, whichever way he turned, that he might well 
have been embarrassed to tell where he should deliver his 
next blow. New York was the first city to fall into the 
hands of the enemy, and it remained longest in their pos- 
session. 

XL Washington threw what remained of his army across 
the Hudson into New Jersey. Here the British followed 
him, their purpose being to scatter the small remnant of his 
forces, to overrun the country between the coast and the 
Delaware, and to capture Philadelphia, December, 1776, 



236 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

was the darkest month, of the Revolution ; hut Washington 
managed to keep the field in the enemy's front, falling hack 
as he advanced. At last he crossed the Delaware, and se- 
cured on the western hank of the stream all the hoats with- 
in reach. Lord Cornwallis, who was in command of the 
pursuing forces, expected to " catch him and end the war '' 
as soon as the ice would bear his army. But Washington 
recrossed the river and surprised the enemy, first at Trenton 
and then at Princeton, inflicting severe losses at both places. 
Next he marched to Morristown, in the mountains of north- 
ern New Jersey, where Cornwallis did not dare attack him. 

XII. Washington now held the range of low mountains 
extending southwest from Peekskill on the Hudson across 
the upper end of New Jersey, a line that he continued to 
hold most of the time until the end of the war. The British 
drew back toward Sandy Hook. The victories at Trenton 
and Princeton greatly encouraged the Americans, and con- 
vinced the king's generals that the war was not over. 
They had failed to capture Philadelphia, and were really 
shut up, on that side, to New York and the adjacent towns. 
In December the British captured Newport, R. I., which 
they held for the next three years. 

XIII. Henceforth New York was the base of nearly all 
the British operations in America, no matter in which of the 
three zones they were conducted. These operations looked 
to three ends : 1, to cut off New England by controlling 
the Sound and the Hudson ; 2, to overrun and hold the 
Middle States ; 3, to subjugate the South. To thwart them 
in their large undertakings, while remaining apparently in- 
different to their isolated and unimportant expeditions, now 
became Washington's steady policy. To this end he occu- 
pied strong positions in New Jersey, as at the hub of a 
wheel, so near to New York that the British generals could 
not venture out of the city in force without endangering 
their base, while Washington kept his army compact for 
effective fighting when he was disposed. New York and 
Pennsylvania were the two theaters of war in 1777. k 



A CONSPECTUS OF TEE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 237 

XIV. In the spring of 1775 Ethan Allen and Benedict 
Arnold captured the British fortresses on Lake Champlain, 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Later the same year, Generals 
Schuyler and Montgomery, with a small force, descended 
the lake, and in November captured Montreal. A little 
later Montgomery effected a junction with General Arnold, 
who with another small force had made his way through 
the wilderness of Maine to Canada. The main object of this 
double invasion was, if possible, to enlist the people of 
Canada in the war and to effect a political union with them ; 
but the Canadians, being of French descent, and having had 
no such training in self-government as the Americans, were 
indifferent to the contest. Montgomery and Arnold made a 
spirited attack on Quebec, but were repulsed, and Mont- 
gomery was killed. In the summer of 1776 the Americans 
abandoned Canada and retreated to the forts on Lake 
Champlain. 

Under the circumstances, the invasion of Canada and the 
determined effort to effect its conquest may seem to have 
been doubtful policy. On the other hand, Congress was 
extremely anxious to induce the Canadians to make common 
cause with the States against England, and even more anx- 
ious to ward off Indian attacks from that quarter, and to 
keep the country from becoming the base of such move- 
ments as those of Burgoyne, made two years later. John 
Adams wrote at the time : 

The regulars [of the British army], if they get full possession of 
that province and the navigation of the St. Lawrence River above 
Deschambault — at least above the mouth of the Sorel — will have 
nothing to interrupt their communication with Niagara, Detroit, 
Michilimackinac ; they will have the navigation of the five Great 
Lakes quite as far as the Mississippi River ; they will have a free 
communication with all the numerous tribes of Indians extended 
along the frontiers of all the colonies, and by their trinkets and 
bribes will induce them to take up the hatchet and spread blood 
and fire -among the inhabitants ; by which means all the frontier in- 
habitants will be driven in upon the middle settlements at a time 



238 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

when the inhabitants of the seaports and coasts will be driven back 
by the British navy. Is this picture too high-colored ? Perhaps it 
is ; but surely we must maintain our power in Canada.* 

XV. In the summer of 1777 General Burgoyne ascended 
Lake Champlain with 8,000 men. He expected to effect a 
junction near Albany with one British army from New 
York, and with another that should march from Lake 
Ontario by the way of Oswego and the Mohaw T k Valley, and 
then to descend the Hudson. His aim was to subdue the 
State of New York, to hold the whole line from the St. Law- 
rence to New York Bay, and to separate New England from 
the Union. He captured the lake forts, and drove the small 
American force before him as he advanced. Passing over 
the u divide " to the southward slope, he began to encounter 
such difficulties as many another general has encountered 
who finds himself in an enemy's country, far from his base 
of supplies. Provisions became scarce, his men fell by dis- 
ease and in battle, the enemy in increasing numbers hung 
upon his rear, and became bolder in his front. A detach- 
ment that he sent to Bennington was annihilated. Checked 
at Bemus Heights and Stillwater in his efforts to break 
through the American army, defeated in his attempt to fall 
back toward Canada, and failing to meet the forces that he 
expected from the South and West, Burgoyne, at Saratoga, 
in October, surrendered to General Gates what remained of 
th>e army that he had led from Canada a few months before. 
Meantime General Clinton was ascending the Hudson, but 
learning of the surrender he retraced his steps to New York, 
while the force dispatched from Lake Ontario under St. 
Leger was defeated at Oriskany and compelled to turn back 
whence it came. After Burgoyne's defeat no further at- 
tempt was made to split the Union by driving a wedge 
through it from North to South. In the meantime impor- 
tant events were taking place in the middle zone. 

XVI. In the spring of 1777 General Howe sought vainly 

* Works, vol. ix, p. 399. 



A CONSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 239 

to bring Washington out of his strong position in northern 
New Jersey. He did not dare attempt a march from New 
York to Philadelphia, lest Washington should strike him in 
the flank as he passed by. So in July, leaving a force to hold 
New York, he put to sea with eight thousand men to attempt 
from the south the capture of that city. Philadelphia was 
as large and wealthy a city as New York, and in some re- 
spects was even more important. Surrounded by a rich and 
populous country, situated on the Delaware midway between 
the North and the South, and readily accessible from both 
directions, it was the continental city of the Eevolution. 

XVII. General Howe landed his forces at Elkton, at the 
head of Chesapeake Bay. Appreciating fully the impor- 
tance of the city, Washington marched south and threw his 
army across the line of the British advance. At Chadd's 
Ford, on the Brandy wine, he was defeated. Howe advanced 
and took possession of Philadelphia. Washington attacked 
again at Germantown, and was again defeated. Forts Mif- 
flin and Mercer, which had compelled the British general 
to ascend the Chesapeake rather than the Delaware, soon 
fell into his hands. General Howe proceeded to quarter 
his troops in Philadelphia. Washington marched up the 
Schuylkill to Valley Forge, where his army passed a miser- 
able winter, half -fed, half -clothed, half -housed, and scourged 
by disease. The American cause seemed almost as desperate 
as the winter before. Still Washington managed to hold 
his troops together. In the meantime the capture of Bur- 
goyne was preparing important events abroad. 

XVIII. Ever since the French and Indian War France 
had hoped to see England and her American colonies es- 
tranged. She remembered keenly her own losses iu that 
war, and still bore her traditional ill-will to England. 
Knowing this, the American Congress had sought to bring 
France into an American alliance. Convinced by the Dec- 
laration of Independence that the States meant separation, 
and by the overthrow of Burgoyne that they would not im- 
probably succeed in the end, the French Government now 



240 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

yielded to persuasion, and early in 1778 entered into a treaty 
of commerce and a treaty of alliance with the young nation. 
This alliance proved to be of the greatest importance. The 
next year Spain also declared war against England. 

XIX. In the spring of 1778 the British line was an arc 
extending from Newport to Philadelphia. It was too long 
to be held against a strong and active enemy occupying a 
position without the arc, and free to attack it with his whole 
force, as Washington was, at any point. News now came 
that a French fleet and army might at any time be expected 
on the coast. Sir Henry Clinton, who had succeeded Howe 
in the chief command, thought it necessary to evacuate 
Philadelphia and concentrate his forces at New York. Not 
daring to try the fortunes of the sea, for fear of the French, 
he abandoned the city and began a march toward New 
York across New Jersey. Washington hastened to follow 
him, and an indecisive battle was fought at Monmouth 
Court House. Clinton reached Sandy Hook, and arrived at 
his destination by way of the bay. 

XX. The British commanders had now failed in the 
Middle States as well as in the North. They continued to 
hold New York to the end of the war, while Washington 
held, as before, his strong line extending from the Hudson 
to Morristown. In 1778 Count D'Estaing arrived on the 
coast with a French fleet and army ; but after threatening 
Newport and New York, accomplishing nothing, he sailed 
to the West Indies. After this there was little fighting 
north of the Potomac. However, a few noteworthy events 
on land and water should be noticed before we go to the 
South. 

XXI. In 1778-79 George Eogers Clarke, acting under 
the authority of Virginia, gathered a force west of the 
mountains, crossed the Ohio Eiver, and wrested from the 
British the territory now comprising the States of Illinois 
and Indiana. In 1779 General Anthony Wayne stormed 
Stony Point, on the Hudson. Toward the close of the next 
year General Arnold attempted to betray to the enemy 



A CONSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 241 

West Point, which he commanded, but his plan was de- 
feated. From time to time the British commanders sent 
marauding expeditions along- the coast, and these plun- 
dered and burned some of the fairest towns of Connecticut, 
New Jersey, and Virginia. On the frontier the Tory and 
the Indian, each rivaling the other in deeds of blood, laid 
waste some nourishing settlements, as Wyoming and Cherry 
Valley. 

XXII. Before the war had begun the States had reached 
a high degree of maritime enterprise and prosperity. In a 
single line of ocean industry they won from Edmund Burke 
the eulogium : " No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. 
No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the 
perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor 
the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever 
carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry to the ex- 
tent to which it has been pushed by this recent people — a 
people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not 
yet hardened into the bone of manhood." Naturally such 
a people as this sought their enemy on the water as -well as 
on the land. They were unable to cope with the English 
navy ; but their privateers vexed British commerce and 
seized many rich prizes. The voyages of some of the Amer- 
ican armed vessels are tales of wild ocean romance. The 
most famous was that of John Paul Jones along the coast 
of England and Scotland in the autumn of 1778 — a voyage 
that ended in the terrific battle of the Bon Homme Rich- 
ard and the Serapis. 

XXIII. After the retreat from Philadelphia, in 1778, the 
British generals turned their attention mainly to the South. 
Late in that year an expedition from New York captured 
Savannah, and soon all Georgia fell into British hands. In 
September, 1779, General Lincoln and Count d'Estaing at- 
tempted the recapture of Savannah, but failed. Early the 
next year, General Clinton, having first caused Newport to 
be evacuated and collected his available troops at New York, 
sailed to Charleston. In May he compelled the surrender 



242 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

of the city and its garrison of six thousand men, commanded 
by General Lincoln. Clinton now returned to New York, 
leaving Lord Cornwallis with a force deemed adequate to 
finish the conquest of the whole South. 

XXIV. The Southern States were full of Tories. The 
ferocious partisan warfare that had raged in Georgia for 
many months now extended to South Carolina, involving 
the State from the mountains to the sea. The history of the 
Revolution has not its parallel. With its swamp encamp- 
ments, night marches, hard-fought battles, desperate ven- 
tures, and narrow escapes, this is the most thrilling chapter 
in the whole history of the war. In these encounters Colo- 
nel Tarleton, commander of Cornwallis's dragoons, greatly 
distinguished himself on the one side, and Generals Sumter 
and Marion on the other. 

XXV. General Gates, the victor of Saratoga, was now 
the commander of the Southern army ; completely defeated 
at Camden in August, 1780, he disappeared from the scene, 
and General Greene succeeded him. By pursuing a policy 
at once bold and wary, now advancing and now retreat- 
ing, now fighting and now eluding his enemy, Greene re- 
stored the desperate fortunes of the war. General Morgan, 
one of his subordinates, defeated Tarleton at Cowpens, in 
January, 1781. Greene himself was defeated at Guilford 
Court House in March of the same year, but Cornwallis 
gained nothing by the victory, and soon retired to Wilming- 
ton on the coast. Greene now moved down into South 
Carolina, where he found Lord Rawdon in command of the 
English forces. Here Greene was generally defeated in the 
fighting, but he conducted his campaign with such caution, 
activity, and prudence, that by the end of the year he had 
practically shut the enemy up in Charleston and Savannah. 
He won also the important battle of Eutaw Springs. 

XXVI. Cornwallis, at Wilmington, knew nothing of 
Greene's march to South Carolina until it was too late to 
stop him. So, thinking Lord Rawdon strong enough to 
hold that State, he turned his attention to the North. Since 



A CONSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 243 

January a British force had been in the waters of Virginia, 
burning towns and laying waste plantations. Cornwallis 
took now the resolution to march to the Chesapeake, effect 
a junction with this force, and subdue Virginia. The march 
was made and the junction effected, and his lordship found 
himself in command of eight thousand men. In obedience 
to orders from New York to hold and fortify some point on 
the coast accessible to the fleet, he made choice of the junc- 
tion of James and York Rivers. Cornwallis arrived in Vir- 
ginia in May, and took possession of Yorktown in August. 

XXVII. General Rochambeau, with a French army, had 
landed at Newport in the summer of 1780, and afterward 
joined Washington on the Hudson. Early in 1781 Wash- 
ington began to threaten New York. He expected the ar- 
rival of a French force strong enough to enable him to 
invest the city. But in August he learned that the fleet and 
army about to arrive on the coast from the West Indies, 
to remain four months only, were destined for Chesapeake 
Bay. He now resolved to march rapidly to Virginia, join 
the French, and capture Cornwallis before succor could 
reach him from the North. Accordingly he put his own 
and Rochambeau's troops in motion for the South, leaving 
a force sufficient to hold his old line, and taking pains to 
conceal his purpose from Clinton, until his left flank was 
beyond striking distance from New York. 

XXVIII. The fleet of Count De Grasse arrived in the 
Capes at the end of August. This fleet closed the bay to 
Cornwallis's escape, and beat off a British squadron sent to 
his relief. The allied army from the North marched to the 
head of the Chesapeake, and was then conveyed down the 
bay in transports. Lafayette had commanded for some 
time a small force in Virginia, with which he had vainly 
sought to oppose the British. A junction of the various 
forces was speedily effected, and on September 30 the invest- 
ment of Yorktown began. So vigorously and skillfully was 
the siege prosecuted that Lord Cornwallis, unable longer 
to resist the attacks by land, or to escape by sea, on Octo- 



244 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

ber 19, 1781, surrendered his army, with all his artillery, 
stores, and munitions of war. And this ended the Virginia 
campaign. 

XXIX. The campaign in Virginia over, De Grasse sailed 
with the French fleet to the West Indies ; and Washington, 
having first sent a re-enforcement to Greene, returned to his 
watch on the Hudson. The surrender of Cornwallis was 
the real end of the contest. Partisan warfare went on at 
the South some time longer, but the great armies now stood 
still, waiting the motions of the diplomatists. Yorktown 
produced a profound impression in England. Opposition 
to the continuance of the war became so strong, that George 
III was compelled to consent to peace and to independence. 
Negotiations between the representatives of the two Govern- 
ments began in Paris in April, 1782, but events moved so 
slowly that it was November 30th before the preliminary 
treaty of peace was signed. In July, 1782, the British evacu- 
ated Savannah, in December of the same year Charleston, 
and in November, 1783, New York. Washington disbanded 
the Continental army in April, 1783, and in December fol- 
lowing surrendered his commission to Congress. The de- 
finitive treaty of peace bears the date, September 3, 1783. 

To put such a general view as this before a pupil when 
he begins the history of the Revolution would be to invite 
failure. The pupil must begin with details, and gradually 
work out his own generalization. A conspectus is the end 
and not the beginning of the study. At the same time, the 
teacher can not assist the pupil to gain that end unless he 
clearly sees the conspectus from the beginning. 



CHAPTEE XIX. 

THE WAR OF 1812. 

References. — Bancroft, Hildreth, Bryant and Gay, Schouler, and 
Adams: Histories of the United States; Winsor: The Narrative 
and Critical History of America ; Hart : Formation of the Union, 
1750-1829. 

The War of 1812 presents to our view a large number of 
military operations scattered over wide areas, and more or 
less isolated and disconnected in character. It is even more 
difficult to reduce them to something like unity than it is to 
perform the same office in the case of the Revolution. "We 
must first seize the geographical relations of the United 
States and the American possessions of Great Britain, ob- 
serve the distribution of population, compare the military 
and naval strength of the two powers, and master the 
main ideas that they desired to carry out. A glance at 
these factors will show that, save on the ocean, the war was 
necessarily confined to three great theaters : the Northern 
frontier, the Atlantic seaboard, and the Gulf coast. 

The naval superiority of England made an invasion of 
Canada by the Gulf of St. Lawrence impossible, and also 
precluded attacks upon the British West Indies. Further- 
more, the vast wilderness extending from the St. Croix to 
the cleft that divides the Appalachian Mountains was a se- 
cure shield to Canada, and also to New England. The 
Champlain -Richelieu Valley — the old highway of war — 
still lay open to both powers. In the region of the upper 
lakes the only war that was possible was a war of posts. 
But at the narrowing of the great Northern water-way the 



246 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

combatants could get at and strike each other : the Detroit 
River, the Niagara River, and the upper St. Lawrence. Even 
at these places, however, war could be carried on only under 
great difficulties. In 1810 there was not a considerable town 
in the western half of New York ; the names Syracuse, 
Rochester, and Buffalo do not appear on the map. The 
population of Ohio was 230,000, Indiana 25,000, Illinois 
12,000, Michigan 5,000, in the first three States mostly found 
in the southern parts, and in the fourth in and around De- 
troit. The total population of Canada was but 400,000, of 
which a quarter only was found in the present province of 
Ontario. Good roads did not exist on either side of the fron- 
tier, and transportation was difficult and expensive. The 
lakes could not become scenes of naval conflict until both 
powers could construct armed vessels. 

The enormous preponderance of England's naval force 
made it easy for her to blockade the whole coast from the 
St. Croix to the St. Marys, and also to land troops at almost 
any point that she chose. Halifax, the Bermudas, and Ja- 
maica furnished the best possible bases of operation for these 
purposes. In the Gulf of Mexico her naval supremacy and 
her naval stations enabled England to do as she pleased, so 
long as she kept within cannon shot of her ships of war. 

Although 'the three regions now mentioned were exten- 
sive, it would not be difficult to arrange the facts in due order, 
were it not for the elements of time and causation. These 
complicate the problem. Geography and causation, how- 
ever, are so closely related that we may consider them as 
one. Accordingly, three questions arise relating to method : 

1. Shall we arrange the facts in three great groups or 
series, as though the whole action were confined to the three 
regions respectively ? This would be excluding the time 
element, save as it appears within the groups. It would be 
a simple method, but it would leave wholly out of view, in 
every case, what was going on in the two other regions at 
the same time. The result would be that our views would 
be partial ones. 



THE WAR OF 1812. 247 

2. Shall we pay exclusive attention to time, arranging the 
facts in the order of the dates on which they occur, without 
regard to place or causation ? This would also be simple, 
but it would be open to the fatal objection that events would 
be thrown wholly out of geographical and causal relation, 
and that the pupil would form a general picture o f the 
whole field, but not a clear picture of any part of it. 

3. Shall wv. combine the two methods just suggested, par- 
tially sacrificing time to place, and place to time, thus some- 
what complicating the picture, but also heightening the 
eflPecti^roduced by its several parts ? This, no doubt, is the 
proper cdurse to follow. It can be followed the more readily 
because, for the first year, little was done save at the 
North. 

The War of 1812 was forced upon the country, under 
great provocation indeed, by the Young Eepublicans, who 
then dominated the Eepublican party and the country. 
These political leaders promised in advance that the war 
should be one of conquest. Mr. Clay, easily the first of 
them, declared : " We can take Canada without soldiers. 
We have only to send officers into the province, and the 
people, disaffected toward their own Government, will rally 
round our standard. . . .We have the Canadas as much un- 
der our command as Great Britain has the ocean, and the 
way to conquer her on the ocean is to drive her from the 
land. I am not for stopping at Quebec or anywhere else, 
but I would take the whole continent from them and ask no 
favors." John Eandolph, ridiculing such pretensions as 
these, said the Young Eepublicans looked for a "holiday 
campaign," " with no expense of blood or treasure on our 
part," but u Canada was to conquer herself, to be subdued by 
the principal of fraternity." But the British did not intend 
to permit the war to become one of defense merely ; the 
home Government prepared to support the Canadians with 
all the troops and ships that could be spared from the great 
struggle then going on in Europe. 

If we regard the Northern water- wav as an arc of a circle, 
18 



248 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

we shall see that the British stood within, the Americans 
without that arc. This relation gave the British important 
advantages : news, orders, troops and munitions of war, 
could he sent from Quebec and Montreal to Mackinaw or 
Detroit much more quickly than from Washington or New 
York : the British generals could move on chords of the 
circle, \vhile the Americans were compelled to move on 
its circumference. General Hull, it will be remembered, 
first heard of ih& declaration of war from the enemy. The 
British had anotnor great advantage in their Indian allies. 
The more resolute of the Western Indians had never made 
up their minds that the West was lost to their race ; and be- 
fore the breaking out of hostilities, Tecumseh, passing back 
and forth between the Indians of the North and of the South, 
had succeeded in constructing his " dam " to hold back " the 
mighty waters ready to overflow his people." The people 
of Michigan complained with reason that they stood on a 
double frontier, facing outward toward Canada and inward 
toward the Indians. As a vigorous writer has said : 

During the War of 1812 there was played out the final act in 
the military drama of which the West had been the stage during 
the lifetime of a generation. For this war had a twofold aspect : 
on the seaboard it was regarded as a contest for the rights of our 
sailors and as a revolt against Great Britain's domineering inso- 
lence ; west of the mountains, on the other hand, it was simply a re- 
newal on a large scale of the Indian struggles, all the red-skinned 
peoples joining together in a great and last effort to keep the lands 
which were being wrested from them ; and there Great Britain's part 
was chiefly that of ally to the savages, helping them with her gold 
and with her well-drilled mercenary troops. The battle of the 
Thames is memorable rather because of the defeat and death of Te- 
cumseh than because of the flight of Proctor and the capture of his 
British regulars ; and for the opening of the Southwest, the ferocious 
fight at the Horseshoe Bend was almost as important as the far 
more famous contest of New Orleans.* 

* .Roosevelt : Thomas H. Benton (Commonwealth Series), p. 8. 



THE WAR OF 1812. 249 

1812. The war opened in the Northwest. Hull's inva- 
sion of Canada proved a miserable failure, and on August 16 
he surrendered Detroit and all Michigan to General Brock. 
A British force from Georgian Bay had seized Mackinaw 
still earlier. It is evident that the British ministry medi- 
tated the recouquest of the whole region. Their Indian 
allies drew them to the Detroit frontier. Green Bay soon 
followed Mackinaw, and in 1814 a strong force of Canadians 
and Indians captured Prairie du Chien, from which point a 
smaller force descended the Mississippi to Rock Island, 
which it fortified and held. The purpose of the home 
Government accounts for the course of General Proctor in 
seeking to coerce the citizens of Detroit to take the oath of 
allegiance to the King of England. 

Hull's crossing of the Detroit was only one of several 
projected offensive movements for the year 1812. One 
army of invasion was collected on the Niagara, a second at 
the foot of Lake Ontario and the head of the St. Lawrence, 
and a third at Plattsburg, on Lake Champlain. While none 
of these expeditions proved as disastrous as Hull's, they all 
signally failed to accomplish their purpose. General Brown 
repelled an attack upon Ogdensburg, but Van Rensselaer's 
and Symthe's attempts on Queenstown Heights and Fort 
Erie came to nothing, while Dearborn's advance upon 
Montreal from Plattsburg did not go beyond the interna- 
tional line. 

1813. The most important operations of the next year 
were on the Detroit River and near the head of Lake Erie. 
In this quarter General Harrison had been put in command, 
and he did his utmost to drive the British forces back upon 
their own soil. The battles of the Raisin, Fort Meigs, and 
Fort Stephenson require only mention. General Hull had 
told the authorities at Washington, before hostilities began, 
that the command of Lake Erie was essential to success ; the 
Government wholly neglected his advice, but the British put 
afloat a squadron that commanded the lake and rendered 
the possession of Detroit secure. Commodore Perry's capture 



250 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY-. 

of this squadron, on September 10, 1813, reversed the con- 
ditions of war on that frontier. General Harrison now 
crossed to the Canadian side and occupied Maiden, at the 
mouth of the river, which Proctor had abandoned. The 
evacuation of Detroit by the British, its reoccupation by the 
Americans, the pursuit of Proctor, and the victory of the 
Thames soon followed. These successes practically closed the 
contest on that frontier, so far as civilized warfare was con- 
cerned. Harrison returned from the Thames to the Detroit, 
and sailed with the regular troops under his command for 
Buffalo. 

All this year war raged on the Niagara and the St. Law- 
rence, with alternate successes and defeats. Late in the sea- 
son two armies began to move upon Montreal, one down 
the St. Lawrence under General Wilkinson, the other down 
Lake Cham plain under General Hampton, but both ex- 
peditions were abandoned long before they reached their 
destination. Commodore Chauncey, our naval commander 
on Lake Ontario, rendered services less brilliant than 
Perry's, but still efficient and valuable. 

In 1813 England established an efficient blockade along 
our whole ocean front. An ingenious writer has likened 
the navigable waters that stretch up into Virginia to " fin- 
gers of an ocean hand, ready to bear to all the world the 
produce of the soil " ; they gave equal opportunities for the 
operations of war, as the history of three wars well shows. 
Early in the year the British seized the wrist — that is, the en- 
trance to Chesapeake Bay — and prepared to make the most 
of their success. But the principal events in that quarter 
came the following year. 

1814. The tide of battle at the North now took a favor- 
able turn. The Americans won important advantages on the 
Niagara. The most notable occurrence was the formidable 
military and naval expedition that was sent from Canada to 
effect a purpose like the one that Burgoyne had attempted 
in 1777. It advanced to Plattsburg ; but Commodore Dow- 
ney was compelled to strike his colors to Maedonough, and 



THE WAR OF 1812. 251 

then Sir George Prevost, commander of the land force, beat 
a hasty retreat to Canada. 

The same year the enemy prepared to strike a fatal blow 
in the Chesapeake region. Here the important events were 
the British march upon Washington, the battle of Bladens- 
burg, the capture of the city, the unsuccessful bombardment 
of Fort McHenry, and the battle of Baltimore. These opera- 
tions over, Admiral Cockburn established his headquarters 
on Cumberland Island, off the Georgia coast. In 1813, also, 
a British force seized Maine as far west as the Penobscot, 
with a view of changing the boundary on that frontier on 
the conclusion of peace. 

At the South events may be treated consecutively. In 
1810 Louisiana had a population of 76,000 ; the Southwest 
Territory, now Alabama and Mississippi, 40,000 ; Tennessee, 
261,000 ;"and Kentucky, 406,000. The powerful Creek Con- 
federacy occupied an extensive region north of the Gulf. 
In that year the United States took possession of Mobile, al- 
though Spain claimed it as lying within her territory. In 
1813 the Tennessee militia were called out, under General 
Jackson, to overawe the Creeks, but as the savages appeared 
peaceable the troops were disbanded. Then followed the 
bloody massacre of Fort Mimms, near Mobile, in which nearly 
five hundred men, women, and children were slaughtered. 
Jackson now marched into the Indian country and inflicted 
upon the Creeks a series of defeats that effectually broke 
their power. About this time some British forces arrived on 
the Gulf coast, and there ensued the bombardment of Fort 
Bowyer and the affair of Barrancas. Jackson also seized 
Pensacola, because, as he said, the Spaniards gave aid and 
comfort to the Indians. 

In 1814 the British ministry took advantage of the lull 
of war in Europe to send to Canada, to the Chesapeake, and 
to the Gulf of Mexico strong forces. The objects of the 
powerful expedition sent to the Gulf were two in number : 
to seize the mouth of the Mississippi, so as to cut the interior 
off once more from the sea, and to occupy and hold valuable 



252 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

territory that would give them an advantage in treating for 
peace. Instructions issued to the commanders recommended 
attempts to seduce the people of Louisiana from their alle- 
giance to the United States and to effect the return of that 
territory to Spain. These were large plans. Before they 
could be executed, however, the treaty of peace negotiated 
at Ghent adjourned them indefinitely ; but had it not been 
so, General Jackson's brilliant victory at New Orleans would 
have made them impossible. 

In the negotiations at Ghent the British commissioners, 
acting under instructions, sought at first to secure large 
territorial advantages. They demanded (1) that a neutral 
belt between the United States and Canada should be estab- 
lished for the perpetual occupancy of the Indians, upon 
which neither party should be permitted to encroach, thus 
keeping the two countries asunder ; (2) that the interna- 
tional line should run along the southern side of the Great 
Lakes ; and (3) that a strip of Maine should be ceded such as 
would give England a road from Halifax to Quebec. In the 
end the boundaries of 1783 were re-established, and commis- 
sions were appointed to settle all disputed points respecting 
them, as will be explained in the next chapter. The Treaty 
of Ghent bears the date, December 24, 1814. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 

References. — I. General View. Johnston : Lalor's Cyclopaedia of 
Political Science (Annexations); Walker: Statistical Atlas of the 
United States, Ninth Census ; Winsor and Channing : Narrative and 
Critical History of the United States (Appendix to Chap. VII., Vol. 
VII.) ; Donaldson : The Public Domain ; Hart : The Quarterly Jour- 
nal of Economics, Vol. L, pp. 169, 251 (The Disposition of our Public 
Lands), The Epoch Maps ; Reclus : The Earth and its Inhabitants, 
North America, III. (The United States, Chap. I.); MacCoun: His- 
torical Geography of the United States ; McMaster : History of the 
People of the United States, Vol. II. (map showing land acquired 
by the United States from 1783 to 1885). 

II. Treaties. Government publications: Treaties and Conven- 
tions between the United States and other Powers : The Statutes at 
Large of the United States ; Charters and Constitutions (edited by 
Poore) ; The Resolution to admit Texas, Statutes at Large, Vol. IX., 
p. 108, and Poore, Vol. II., p. 1764. 

III. Territorial claims made by Congress at the Revolution. 
The Secret Journals of the Congress of the Confederation, Vol. II., 
pp. 225, 326, 445 ; Vol. III., p. 155 ; Winsor : Narrative and Critical 
History, Vol. VII. (editorial notes to Chap. II.). 

IV. Negotiations at Paris, 1782-'83. Diplomatic Correspondence 
of the Revolution, Vol. X., p. 7 (report made by the American com- 
missioners); id., Vol. VIII., pp. 21, 129 (Jay's Letters); Bancroft: 
History, Vol. V., Chaps. V.-V1I. ; Jay : The Peace Negotiations of 
1782, 1783,. an address delivered before the New York Historical 
Society, November 27, 1883, Narrative and Critical History, Vol. 
VII., Chap. II. (The peace negotiations of 1782-83) : Winsor : Nar- 
rative and Critical History (editorial notes to Vol. VII., Chap. VII.) ; 



254 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Wharton : International Law of the United States, Vol. III., Appen- 
dix ; (Peace negotiations of 1782-83 with Great Britain) ; Angell : 
Narrative and Critical History, Vol. VII., Chap. VII. (The diplo- 
macy of the United States) ; Lyman : The Diplomacy of the United 
States, Vol. I. ; Lecky : History of England in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury, Vol. IV., Chap. XV. ; Lord Fitzmaurice : Life of William Earl 
Shelburne, Vol. III., Chaps. IV., VI. ; John Adams : Works, Vol. I. 
(Appendix 6). 

V. Louisiana. Adams : History of the United States of America, 
Vol. I., Chaps. XIV.-XVIL, Vol. II., Chaps. ll.-V. (the best existing 
account) ; McMaster : History of the People of the United States, 
Vol. II., Chap. XIII. ; Hart : The Formation of the Constitution ; 
Von Hoist: Constitutional and Political History of the United 
States, 1750-1828 ; Lyman, Angell, Hildreth, and Schouler : as be- 
fore ; Jefferson's writings, Vol. IV. 

VI. Florida. Adams, Lyman, Hildreth, Schouler, Angell, Von 
Hoist, and Hart : as before ; Morse : John Quincy Adams ; Oilman : 
James Monroe ; Sumner : Andrew Jackson. 

VII. Texas. Schurz : Henry Clay ; Roosevelt : T. H. Benton ; 
Von Hoist : The Constitutional and Political History, 1828-46, John 
C. Calhoun ; Benton : Thirty Years' View (passim) ; Greeley : The 
American Conflict, Vol. I. ; Yoakum : History of Texas ; Wilson : 
Division and Reunion ; Schouler : as before. 

VIII. The first Mexican annexation. Schurz, Roosevelt, Benton, 
Greeley, Schouler, and Wilson : as before ; Von Hoist : Constitu- 
tional and Political History of the United States, 1846-50, John C. 
Calhoun. 

IX. The second Mexican annexation. Schouler and Wilson : as 
before ; Von Hoist : Constitution and Political History, 1850-'54. 

X. Oregon. Barrows : Oregon ; Greenhow : History of Ore- 
gon and California ; Benton : Thirty Years' View ; H. H. Bancroft : 
History of Oregon ; Curtis : Life of James Buchanan, Life of Daniel 
Webster. 

XI. Alaska. H. H. Bancroft: History of Alaska; Sumner: 
Works, Vol. XI., p. 181 (The Cession of Russian America to the 
United States). 

In 1783 the United States contained eight hundred and 
twenty thousand square miles of territory. At present they 
contain three million five hundred thousand square miles. 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 255 

If we follow the steps of this extraordinary territorial 
growth we shall pass in review some of the principal forces 
that have acted in the national history, and also furnish an 
illustration of the organization of facts. 

I. The Original United States. 

The Treaty of Paris, made with England at the close of 
the Revolutionary War, established our independence, and 
also gave us our first national boundaries, as follows : North, 
the highlands dividing the rivers that flow to the St. Law- 
rence from the rivers that flow to the Atlantic Ocean, the 
Connecticut River from its source to parallel 45° north, said 
paraUel to its intersection with the St. Lawrence, the middle 
of the Lake and St. Lawrence water-way to Long Lake, the 
middle of this lake and the water connections beyond it to the 
northwesternmost corner of the Lake of the Woods, and a 
line drawn due west from this point to the Mississippi River ; 
West, the middle of the Mississippi from this point of inter- 
section to parallel 31° north latitude ; South, parallel 31° to 
the Chattahoochee River, the middle of this stream to its 
junction with the Flint, a straight line drawn from this 
junction to the head of the St. Marys, and the middle of the 
St. Marys to the sea ; East, the ocean, including all islands 
within twenty leagues of the coast, save such as belonged to 
Nova Scotia, the middle of the St. Croix River from its mouth 
to its source, and a straight line drawn due north from such 
source to the place of beginning. 

The rule that the negotiators on both sides professed to 
follow was, that the United States should comprise the terri- 
tory that the thirteen colonies collectively had comprised ; 
but the boundaries of the colonies had been so vaguely de- 
fined that serious differences of opinion arose as to the appli- 
cation of the rule. At first, the American commissioners 
claimed that the St. Johns was the old boundary be ween 
New England and Nova Scotia, while the English insisted 
first upon the Piscataqua and afterward the Kennebec, and 
the Penobscot. On the north, Congress had instructed its 



256 H 0W TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

representatives to contend for a straight line from the inter- 
section of the forty-fifth parallel and the St. Lawrence to the 
foot of Lake Nipissing, and a due west line from this point to 
the Mississippi, but afterward authorized them to accept the 
parallel of 45° from the Connecticut River to the Mississippi. 
On the west, the Americans, acting under instructions, con- 
tended that the middle of the Mississippi, which was made the 
dividing line between England and Spain in 1763, had been 
the western boundary of the colonies since that time, and 
was now therefore the proper limit of the States, and in sup- 
port of this claim they advanced the ancient charters that 
had run through the continent from sea to sea and the 
Iroquois title of New York. The British diplomatists replied 
that the old charters had long before been annulled, and held 
that a royal proclamation issued in 1763 had limited the colo- 
nies on the west by a line so drawn that it would separate the 
heads of the streams of the Atlantic Plain from those of the 
Mississippi Valley. Still, south of the Ohio they were will- 
ing to yield ; north of that river the country should remain 
a dependency of Canada. The Americans denied that the 
proclamation of 1763 had established a new boundary line, 
while they pointed to the facts that there were already con- 
siderable settlements of American citizens south of the Ohio, 
and that the region northwest of that river had been con- 
quered by American troops in 1778, and had since been held 
by them. Spain had ceded Florida to England in 1763, but 
in the course of the war that she declared against England 
in 1779 she had recovered most of it ; moreover, she was de- 
sirous of retaining all Florida at the peace, and also of 
obtaining possession of the eastern half of the Mississippi 
Valley south of the Ohio. England finally agreed that the 
parallel of 31° should be our boundary from the Mississippi 
to the Chattahoochee, but insisted upon the insertion of a 
secret article in the treaty, to the effect that the parallel pass- 
ing through the mouth of the Yazoo, between these two 
rivers, should be the boundary, provided she should still 
retain Florida at the conclusion of peace ; but as Florida 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 257 

passed to Spain in 1783 this secret article fell to the 
ground. 

Such were our first boundaries as drawn upon paper. 
Drawn upon the earth, they led through vast wastes of forest 
and waters of which the geography was largely unknown, 
and nothing was more natural than that disputes should 
arise between the parties when the time came to run out and 
mark the lines. 

First, England ceded Florida to Spain about the time 
that she gave us our boundaries, without assigning any 
limits whatever. As England in 1764 had bounded the west- 
ern province of Florida on the north by the parallel passing 
through the mouth of the Yazoo from the Mississippi to the 
Chattahoochee, Spain now claimed that parallel as her 
northern limit. In 1795 she yielded the point in our favor, 
and a few years later the line was surveyed and marked. 

On the north, the first controversy was as to the identity 
of the St. Croix River. This was settled in the interest of 
the United States in 1798, by a joint commission appointed 
under one of the articles of Jay's treaty of four years be- 
fore. The Treaty of Ghent (1814) divided the boundary 
questions at issue between the two contracting powers into 
four groups, and referred them to three joint commissions. 
The first commission should deal with the islands in Passa- 
maquoddy and Fundy Bays ; the second commission should 
locate the line from the head of the St. Croix to the St. Law- 
rence ; while the third one should first run and mark the 
Lake and St. Lawrence boundary to the head of Lake Huron, 
and afterward the remaining section to the farthest corner of 
the Lake of the Woods. The first commission completed its 
work in 1817, and the third one finished the water-way line 
to the head of Lake Huron in 1822. The second commission 
could not agree, nor could the third one agree as to the Lake 
Superior division. The controversies as to these two sec- 
tions of our northern boundary were finally disposed of by 
the Webster- Ashburton treaty of 1842. Long before this, it 
had been discovered that the Mississippi could not be reached 



258 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

by drawing a line due west from the northwestern point of 
the Lake of the Woods. Still further, the United States had 
purchased Louisiana without definite limits, which made it 
necessary for the two powers to establish a boundary between 
that province and Canada. The two questions were dis- 
posed of in 1818, by a treaty which provided that a due north- 
and-south line should be drawn through the farthest point 
of the Lake of the Woods to the forty-ninth parallel, and 
that parallel 49° should be the boundary between the two 
countries from the point of intersection to the Stony Moun- 
tains. These several treaties account for the Minnesota 
u jog." 

II. Louisiana. 
In a previous chapter we have seen that English settle- 
ments west of the Alleghanies did not begin until the mid- 
dle of the last century. Even then they increased but 
slowly, until the close of the Revolutionary War. The cen- 
sus takers of 1790 reported 228,758 people on the Western 
waters, 63,518 in Pennsylvania, 55,873 in western Virginia, 
73,677 in Kentucky, and 35,691 in Tennessee. In 1800 this 
population had increased to 584,728, and in 1810 to 1,279,172. 
The relative increase was even more significant. In 1790 
the Western population was less than six per cent of that of 
the whole country, in 1800 more than eleven per cent, and in 
1810 nearly eighteen per cent. For their numbers these peo- 
ple were remarkable for enterprise and force. In respect to 
markets and travel they had practically cut themselves off 
from the Atlantic seaboard by crossing the mountains. The 
only practicable roads were the Indian trails, which could be 
traveled only by pack horses, and by the trail so widened 
by the axe as to admit of the passage of wheeled vehicles. 
At the beginning of this century the best road from Phila- 
delphia or Baltimore to Cincinnati lay through the Shenan- 
doah Valley and Cumberland Gap, and so on through cen- 
tral Kentucky. Around the Western people lay inexhaust- 
ible quantities of virgin lands, as productive as any in the 
world, while their former occupations, habits, and tastes, as 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 259 

well as the conditions of pioneer life, confined them to agri- 
cultural pursuits. Andrew Eilicott, Surveyor General of 
the United States, as he floated down the Ohio in 1796, ob- 
served that the country produced all the immediate neces- 
saries of life in quantities far beyond the consumption of 
the inhabitants, and that there was a large surplus of these 
necessaries, together with hemp, cordage, whisky, apples, 
cider, and salted provisions. He also observed the lack of 
manufactures, of markets for materials, and the high prices 
of imported goods, and reflected that to these causes was 
due, in part, the character which had been given to the peo- 
ple as insurgents and disorganizes. Almost the only article 
that found a ready market at home and would command 
cash was distilled spirits. 

But while Nature had thrust a mountain barrier between 
the Western people and the Atlantic seaboard, she had pro- 
vided for them a grand water-way leading to the outside 
world. The markets of New Orleans, the Gulf coast, the 
West Indies, and the Atlantic States stood ready to take all 
the bulky but cheap commodities that the West could pro- 
duce. Hence it was that Mr. Jefferson wrote, in 1802 : 
u There is on the globe one single spot the possessor of which 
is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, 
through which the products of three fifths of our territory 
must pass to market, and from its fertility it will ere long 
yield more than one half of our whole produce, and contain 
more than one half of our inhabitants." Mr. Madison did 
not exaggerate when he wrote about the same time that, to 
the people of the West, the Mississippi was everything. The 
Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and all the navigable 
streams of the Atlantic States formed into one stream. But, 
unfortunately, the possession of the outlet of this great nat- 
ural highway was in the possession of a foreign power. 

After 1763 Spain owned the western side of the river 
and the island of New Orleans, and after 1783 she owned 
Florida also. Above the parallel of 31° the United States 
met Spain at the middle thread of the river, but below that 



260 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

line they enjoyed no privileges except such as Spain saw 
fit to grant them.* Spain's old jealousy for the Gulf of 
Mexico had by no means burned out. The Mississippi was 
the great road from the Ohio Valley to Mexico, Florida, and 
the Gulf islands, as well as to New Orleans. In fact, Spain 
valued New Orleans mainly because she thought it essential 
to the security of possessions that she prized more highly. 
Although she declared war against England in 1779, she 
refused to enter into a treaty with the United States ; in 
1782 she strove to exclude the Eepublic from the Mississippi 
altogether ; and when the war was over she not only dis- 
puted our southern boundary, and for years maintained 
troops within our territory, but refused to come to any un- 
derstanding with regard to navigation and commerce. 
Sometimes the port of New Orleans was open to Ameri- 
cans, sometimes closed ; and sometimes, as Mr. Cable has 
said, it was " neither closed nor open 1 ' — which means that it 
was open to preferred traders who were in collusion with 
the local Spanish authorities and closed to others. When a 
fleet of flatboats left the Ohio for the lower Mississippi, the 
men in charge could never certainly tell whether they 
would safely reach their destination and dispose of their 
commodities at remunerative prices, or whether the boats 
would be seized and their freight confiscated. As Surveyor- 
General Ellicott descended the river, even after the treaty of 
1795, he was several times halted and detained by Spanish 
officers. The National Government could not for the time 
compel Spain to come to terms ; and the Western people, or 
rather a portion of them, thinking the Government indiffer- 
ent to their interests, and incited by restless and ambitious 

* In 1763 France ceded to Great Britain the right to navigate the Mis- 
sissippi in its whole breadth and length, from its source to the sea, and in 
l782-'83 Great Britain and the United States agreed that the navigation of 
the river, from its source to the ocean, should forever remain free and open 
to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States. But 
his Catholic Majesty denied absolutely that these treaties gave the United 
States any rights whatever below the thirty -first parallel. 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 261 

spirits, sometimes thought of seceding from the Union, seiz- 
ing the mouth of the Mississippi, and setting up for them- 
selves, and sometimes of uniting their destiny with that of 
the Spaniards. 

In 1795 Spain entered for the first time into treaty rela- 
tions with the United States, the treaty being known as San 
Lorenzo. She now confirmed our southern and western 
boundaries, promised to withdraw her troops from our terri- 
tory, opened the navigation of the river in its whole breadth, 
from its source to the ocean, to the citizens of the United 
States, and also granted them for three years the right to 
deposit and reship merchandise in the port of New Orleans 
without duty or charge other than a fair price for storage, 
promising also that she would, on the expiration of the 
time, assign some other place of deposit on the bank of 
the river. For a time matters now moved more smooth- 
ly ; but in 1798 the local authority suspended the right of 
deposit, and thus threw the West into a new ferment. The 
royal Government restored the right rather than incur the 
danger of war. Experience had now fully proved that the 
interests of the West could never be safe so long as a foreign 
power, even if as weak and placid as Spain, owned the mouth 
of the Mississippi. 

In 1800 Bonaparte compelled Spain, by the treaty of San 
Ildefonso, to retrocede Louisiana to France. For a time the 
retrocession was kept secret, but on its becoming known in 
the United States it produced great excitement, and particu- 
larly in the West. President Jefferson wrote that France, 
owing to the impetuosity of her temper and the restlessness 
and energy of her character, would at New Orleans be in a 
point of eternal friction with the United States, and that per- 
manent peace between the two powers would be impossible. 
He declared that the occlusion of the Mississippi was a state 
of things in which the United States could not exist ; that 
the river was so indispensable to them that they could not 
hesitate for one moment to hazard their existence for its 
maintenance ; and that whatever power other than them- 



262 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOEY. 

selves held the island of New Orleans was their natural 
enemy. The local Spanish authority, which was still in 
possession, added to the excitement by again withdrawing 
the right of deposit. Congress strove to meet the emer- 
gency by authorizing the purchase of the island for two 
million dollars, and Mr. Monroe was sent to Paris to assist 
Minister Livingston in the negotiation. But Bonaparte pro- 
posed instead to sell all Louisiana, which our Government 
hastened to purchase at the price of fifteen million dollars. 

III. Florida. 

The King of Spain gave up Louisiana to France simply 
because Bonaparte compelled him to do so. He regarded 
the province as an outwork of Mexico, and no other dis- 
position could be made of it that would be so unwelcome 
to him as its transfer to the United States. Naturally, 
therefore, his Government at once set about confining the 
province within the narrowest possible limits. 

The treaty of sale merely quoted the description con- 
tained in the treaty of San Ildefonso : " The colony or 
province of Louisiana with the same extent that it now has 
in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France pos- 
sessed it, and such as it should have after the treaties subse- 
quently entered into between Spain and other states. " What 
this extent was could be ascertained only by appealing to 
History, and her testimony was conflicting, as a brief re- 
cital will show. 

On April 9, 1682, La Sal]e, having descended the Missis- 
sippi to its mouth, acting in the name of his royal master, 
King Louis XIV, of France, took formal possession of the 
region that he named Louisiana, and that he bounded as 
follows : " Extending from the mouth of the great river St. 
Louis, otherwise called the Ohio, as also along the river Col- 
bert, or Mississippi, and the rivers which discharge them- 
selves thereinto, from its source beyond the country of the 
Nadoussioux ... as far as its mouth at the sea, or Gulf of 
Mexico, and also to the mouth of the River of Palms." This 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 263 

vast territory, lying on the Gulf coast between the Mobile 
and the Rio Grande, and extending to the farthest sources 
of the Mississippi and of all its affluents, was the first Lou- 
isiana. Such were the boundaries laid down on Franque- 
lin's great map of 1684. 

La Salle based the claim that he made for France on dis- 
covery. But as the Pope had given all North America to 
Spain, and as Spaniards had discovered and explored por- 
tions of this very territory, that power held the act of La Salle 
an intrusion. In fact, she had long before declared the Gulf 
of Mexico a closed sea to all powers but herself. But Spain 
had lost her supremacy among the powers of Europe, and she 
was wholly unable to exclude France, which was now in the 
ascendant, from the Mississippi. La Salle's colony intended 
for the mouth of the Mississippi, either by accident or design, 
was set down on the Texas coast, far to the west, where it 
proved a disastrous failure. At the close of the seventeenth 
century and the beginning of the eighteenth the Spanish 
viceroys of Mexico, acting under instructions, sent soldiers 
and colonists into Texas to hold it for the King of Spain. 
The French never returned to Texas, and it can not be said 
that they were ever in actual possession of the region be- 
tween the Sabine and the Rio Grande. Still, no boundary 
between the French and Spanish possessions in the South- 
west was ever agreed to, previous to the time when the 
French gave up their dominions in North America. On 
the east, however, the French settlements extended to the 
Mobile. 

In 1763 the Mississippi Valley was cleft in twain. 
France drew a line through the middle of the river from 
its source to the Iberville, and from this point a line through 
the middle of the Iberville and Lakes Maurepas and Pont- 
chartrain to the sea. All of her old dominions on the east 
side of this line she ceded to England, all on the west side 
to Spain. At the same time Spain ceded to England Flor- 
ida. These acts limited Louisiana, save below the junction 
of the Mississippi and the Iberville, to the western side of 
19 



264 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

the great, river. As Spain now owned the whole Southwest, 
extending to the Pacific Ocean, she had no motive to estab- 
lish a boundary line between her old and her new posses- 
sions. Accordingly, the territory ceded by France to Spain 
in 1763 was the second Louisiana. 

It is clear that the treaty of 1803 involved a contradiction 
of terms. French Louisiana had extended on the east to the 
Perdido, but Spanish Louisiana only to the Iberville and 
the lakes. That part of French Louisiana which passed to 
England in 1763 was immediately made a part of Florida. 
It is true that Spain recovered all Florida in 1783, but she 
denied that the part of Louisiana which England had re- 
ceived from France, and which she had regained twenty 
years later, was any part of the Louisiana that she retro- 
ceded to France in 1800. The United States claimed the 
coast to the Perdido, but Spain would yield only to the Iber- 
ville. On the west there was a similar dispute. Previous 
to 1763 France had regarded the Rio Grande the western 
limit of Louisiana, but Spain had claimed Texas, and in 
part occupied it. The common American view was that 
our rightful boundary on the west, after 1803, was the Rio 
Grande from mouth to source, and north of that the water- 
parting to the possessions of Great Britain. Spain, how- 
ever, maintained her claim to Texas. 

The acquisition of New Orleans left all the other Gulf 
ports in Spanish hands ; and this fact was so keenly felt by 
those more directly interested, that some suggested whether 
it would not be wise to exchange all Louisiana west of the 
Mississippi for the two Floridas. Important rivers that 
headed in the United States had their mouths in Spanish 
territory, thus presenting the Mississippi question over again 
on a smaller scale. Indians living on the Spanish side of 
the line, and also outlaws and desperadoes, committed out- 
rages on the American side. To redress such wrongs Gen- 
eral Jackson twice crossed the frontier at the head of an 
American army, once in 1814 and once in 1818. The South- 
ern people, and particularly the Georgians, demanded, first, 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 265 

that the Government at Washington should insist upon the 
Perdido boundary, and afterward that it should take steps to 
acquire east Florida, using force if necessary. And so the 
feeling continued to grow, and not unnaturally, that the 
possession of the whole Gulf coast east of the Mississippi 
was essential to the peace and security of the frontier and 
to the geographical completeness of the United States. Still 
more, the Spanish Government was indebted to American 
citizens in large sums on account of Spanish depredations 
committed on American commerce. These causes, including 
the serious disputes about boundaries, virtually forced our 
second extension of territory. 

Spain retained possession of the coast east of the Iberville 
until 1810, when our Government took possession of the 
major part of the district that was in dispute. It also con- 
tinued to press his Catholic Majesty for a settlement of all 
pending controversies, until in 1819 he sold Florida for five 
million dollars, the money to be applied to the payment of 
American claims, and also agreed to the following boundary 
line between the United States and Mexico on the southwest : 
The west bank of the Sabine River from the Gulf to parallel 
32°, a due north line to Red River, the south bank of the Red 
River to longitude 100° west from Greenwich, this meridian 
to the Arkansas, the south bank of the Arkansas to its source, 
from this point south or north, as the case might be, to paral- 
lel 42°, and then along that parallel to the Pacific Ocean. 
This line left Texas on the Spanish side, and we may regard 
that province as a part of the purchase price paid for Florida. 

The truth is, that what the United States really wished 
to buy in 1803 was the island of New Orleans and west 
Florida, and not the western half of the Mississippi Valley. 
At that stage of their development the Gulf coast from the 
mouth of the Mississippi to the Perdido was much more 
valuable to them than the region of the Missouri. They did 
not get all that they wanted. Furthermore, owing to the 
haste with which the negotiations were conducted, the con- 
cealment practiced by Bonaparte's Government, the vague- 



266 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

ness of the old boundaries, and the uncertainty as to what 
actually passed from Spain to France, they did not clearly 
know what they were buying. For the time, therefore, 
the purchase proved something- of a disappointment. 

The causes that brought about the annexation of Louisi- 
ana and Florida lie upon the surface. In addition to the 
earth hunger of the Anglo-Saxon race,* we note the constant 
pressure southward and westward of a large and rapidly 
growing population, made aggressive by industrial and com- 
mercial necessities, and by natural and historical environ- 
ment. The American did not like the Spaniard. As na- 
tional boundaries, rivers yield to mountains. River valleys 
generally contain populations related by blood and history, 
while mountains often mark differences of race and civiliza- 
tion. In 1800 there were 585,000 Americans west of the 
Alleghany Mountains, while Louisiana did not contain 
more than 60,000 Frenchmen and Spaniards. In vigor, 
and in capacity for subduing and replenishing the Great 
West, the disparity between these two populations was 
greater than it was in numbers. Taking these facts into 
account, and also the geographical relations of the two 
halves of the Mississippi Valley to each other, and of the 
Gulf coast to the original United States, the annexation of 
Louisiana and Florida could not long remain doubtful. 
The treaty of 1803 restored the political unity f of the great 
valley, and made the next annexation inevitable. 

* Mr. Sumner, referring to the growth of our national dominion, once 
said: " It was land, not gold, that roused the Anglo-Saxon phlegm. I 
doubt, however, if this passion he stronger with us than with others, ex- 
cept, perhaps, that in a community where all participate in government 
the national sentiments are more active. It is common to the human fam- 
ily. There are few anywhere who could hear of a considerable accession 
of territory, obtained peacefully and honestly, without a pride ot country, 
even if at certain moments the judgment hesitated. With increased size 
on the map there is increased consciousness of strength, and the heart of 
the citizen throbs anew as he traces the extending line." 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 267 



IV. Texas. 

Previous to 1819 the feeling was general, at least at the 
South and West, that the Louisiana purchase extended to 
the Rio Grande. Still, public opinion accepted the Sabine 
in its stead, since " the alienation of Texas," as some called 
it, was commonly counted a part of the price of Florida. 
But this acquiescence did not prevent the taking of imme- 
diate steps to secure that territory. 

In 1831 occurred the revolution that led to the establish- 
ment of the republic of Mexico, of which Texas and Coa- 
huila was one of the states. About the same time adven- 
turous persons from the United States, mainly from the 
South, acting in concert with a political propaganda, began 
to found settlements in that state on lands obtained from 
the Mexican Government. Constantly re-enforced from the 
South and West, this population grew, until in 1836 the 
Texans seceded from Mexico and established the ''Lone 
Star" republic. From the first, the men who promoted 
these movements looked to the ultimate incorporation of 
Texas into the United States ; and after various attempts 
and failures that end was finally accomplished in 1815, thus 
correcting the " alienation " of 1819. This was done in pur- 
suance of a joint resolution of Congress. 

In this third annexation the old causes acted with un- 
diminished power. The feeling prevailed that Nature and 
History had made Texas ours ; the idea of reclamation also 
exerted an influence. But a new cause now declared itself. 
This was the need of the Slave Power for new territory out 
of which to make new slave States, as related in a future 
chapter. One of the conditions of the annexation of Texas 
was that it might be cut up into several States. 

V. First Mexican Annexation. 

Texas brought with her into the Union a quarrel. 
Mexico had never acknowledged her independence, and, 
what was more serious, did not acknowledge the western 



268 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

boundaries that Texas claimed. Texas insisted that her 
right extended westward to the Rio Grande ; Mexico that 
hers extended eastward to the Nueces. The United States 
sent an army into the disputed territory to maintain the 
Texan claim. Mexico sent an army to defend her claim. 
In the war that ensued the United States forces not only 
held the territory lying between the two rivers, but also con- 
quered New Mexico and Upper California, as previously re- 
lated. From the beginning of hostilities our Government 
had made an acquisition of territory a principal object of 
the war, as " indemnity for the past and security for the fu- 
ture" ; and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, entered into 
in 1848, secured to us the territories just named on the 
payment of fifteen million dollars. These were the new 
boundaries : The deepest channel of the Rio Grande from its 
mouth to the southern boundary of New Mexico, the south- 
ern and western boundaries of that territory to the river 
Gila, the Gila to the Colorado, and from their junction a 
line drawn across the Colorado and between Upper and 
Lower California to the Pacific Ocean. 

VI. Second Mexican Annexation. 

Soon there arose a dispute over the new boundary line 
in the Gila River region : both parties claimed the Mesilla 
Valley, in southern Arizona. For a time war seemed immi- 
nent, but in 1853 a treaty was negotiated by which the 
United States obtained a new accession of territory on pay- 
ment of ten million dollars. This is sometimes called the 
"Gadsden Purchase," from General Gadsden, who negoti- 
ated the treaty on our part. 

These two annexations were effected by the action of 
causes already enumerated, but the ambition of the Slave 
Power was the master motive. Still, not a foot of the soil 
acquired by the treaties of 1848 and 1853 ever became slave 
soil. 

About the year 1730 Bishop Berkeley wrote his familiar 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 269 

verses on the prospect of planting arts and learning in 
America, of which this is the best known stanza : 

Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The first four acts already passed, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 

These lines expressed a sentiment that was more or less 
current before the American Revolution, and thus naturally 
became connected with the history of the United States. 
At the opening of the Revolution the American patriots 
adopted the names America and American, continent and 
continental. In part this language was due to the habit of 
large speech that prevailed at the time, but it was not with- 
out its influence on the course of events. In 1787 John 
Adams wrote that tbe United States were destined to spread 
over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe. 
In 1823 President Monroe promulgated the Monroe doc- 
trine, which was merely a notification to the Holy Alliance 
of Europe that the United States would regard any attempt 
of the powers composing it to control the destinies of the 
American states that had declared themselves independent 
of Spain as the manifestation of an unfriendly spirit toward 
themselves, but it was often assumed to be a promise of a sort 
of political protection or guardianship of the two Americas 
on the part of the United States. All these factors, energized 
by the spontaneous vigor of a free and growing people, cul- 
minated, about the time of the Mexican War, in what was 
called Manifest Destiny, or the belief which many people 
entertained, and which some statesmen fostered, that the 
republic was destined to occupy the continent. 

VII Oregon. 

On no other part of the map of America do we find such 
a variety of geographical names as on the Northwest coast. 
Spanish, English, Greek, Dutch, Russian, German, and 
American names, to say nothing of native ones, jostle one 



270 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

another. This diversity is typical of the diversity of nation- 
alities that participated in exploration and discovery on that 
coast, and also helps to explain the conflicting titles that 
we are now to describe. 

First, Spain claimed the coast from California to a high 
latitude, basing her right on numerous voyages of discovery 
that run back to the year 1543. At no time, however, did 
she plant colonies north of parallel 42°. Russia asserted 
a claim that extended far down the coast, resting it on 
discoveries, explorations, and trading operations. Sir Fran- 
cis Drake visited the coast in 1580, Captain Cook in 1778, 
and Vancouver in 1793. These voyages gave England a 
color of title, but she rested her claim mainly on certain 
trading posts that fur traders, who came overland from Can- 
ada in 1793, 1806, and 1811, had established. Before this 
time, however, the country north of California had been 
named. The name Oregon is said to be the Spanish Orejon, 
u big ear " — " The designation in that language of a tribe of 
Indians living high up on the [Columbia] River, and chief- 
ly known to us by the French name, Pends d'Oreilles, from 
the habit which they formerly had of enlarging the lobe of 
the ear to a monstrous size by the insertion of metal or wood 
into a cut made for that purpose." The Spaniards called the 
river that we now know as the Columbia, Rio de los Ore- 
jones, and from the river the name passed to the country 
that it drained. A familiar line of Bryant's Thanatopsis 
commemorates the first use of Oregon. In 1792 Captain 
Gray, of Boston, first entered the river, if he did not indeed 
first see it, and gave to it the patriotic name of his ship, The 
Columbia. In due time Columbia superseded Oregon as 
the name of the river, but not as the name of the country. 

The claim of the United States to territory on the North- 
west coast originated in Captain G-ray's discovery. In 
1803-1806 Captains Lewis and Clarke, United States officers, 
acting under the direction of President Jefferson, crossed 
the Rocky Mountains and explored the valley of the Colum- 
bia south of parallel 49°. It is noteworthy that this expe- 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 271 

dition was organized before the purchase of Louisiana. In 
1811 Mr. Astor established at the mouth of the Columbia 
the trading post that he named Astoria. In 1819 Spain 
ceded to the United States all her right and title to territory 
north of the forty-second parallel. In 1824 Russia agreed 
not to make settlements south of 51° 40', and the United 
States agreed not to make them north of that line, and the 
ensuing year Russia and England entered into similar en- 
gagements. These treaties fixed the boundaries of Oregon 
On the north and on the south, and also excluded Spain and 
Russia from the further competition for its ownership, thus 
leaving the United States and England to settle that ques- 
tion between themselves. The United States claimed the 
whole region between those parallels west of the mountains, 
while England asserted that she also had rights there, al- 
though she did not claim an exclusive ownership. The two 
powers not being able to agree, and the question not being 
then a pressing one, the treaty of 1818, which made the 
forty-ninth parallel the boundary from the Lake of the 
Woods to the Stony Mountains, provided that for ten years 
Oregon should be open to the citizens and subjects of both 
alike, without prejudice to the claims of either. In 1828 
this joint occupancy was extended indefinitely, with the 
proviso that either nation might terminate it by giving a 
year's notice to the other. About 1832 American citizens be- 
gan to make settlements in the valley of the Columbia, and by 
1845 they had become three thousand in number and were con- 
stantly increasing. A boundary had now become impera- 
tive ; and in 1846 it was agreed that the parallel of 49° from 
the Rocky Mountains to the channel between Vancouver's 
Island and the mainland, and a line drawn through the 
middle of this channel and the Strait of Fuca, should be the 
line of demarcation, with free navigation of the channel 
and of the Columbia to both parties. Later, a difference 
arose as to the identity of the main channel — a question that 
the Emperor of Germany, as an arbitrator, decided in our 
favor in 1872. 



272 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

The title of the United States to the territory west of the 
Eocky Mountains, "between the forty-second and forty-ninth 
parallels of latitude, is made up of the following facts : 1, 
Gray's discovery of the Columhia in 1792 ; 2, Lewis and 
Clarke's explorations, 1803-1806 ; 3, the founding of Astoria in 
1811 ; 4, the Spanish treaty of 1819 ; 5, the Eussian treaty of 
1824 ; 6, the settlements made in the period 1832-1846 ; 7, 
the treaty of 1846 ; 8, the treaty of 1872, under which the 
Emperor William rendered his decision. It should be added 
that the representatives of the United States, in pressing our 
claims upon England, laid stress upon contiguity — that is, 
the fact that the geographical relations of Oregon to the 
abutting territory east of the mountains formed a quasi title. 
It should be further observed that the statement sometimes 
made to the effect that Oregon was a part of the Louisiana 
purchase is without foundation ; all books and maps mak- 
ing such a representation are misleading.* 

Slavery played no direct part in the Oregon contest. 
Owing to the influence of the Slave Power in national af- 
fairs in those years, manifest destiny was less active at the 
North than at the South. In domestic discussions more or 
less was said about the Monroe doctrine. It was alleged 
that to yield any part of Oregon to England would be con- 
senting to the formation of a new American colony in North 
America, and that as a next-door neighbor. However, this 
was not the first time that jealousy of England had played 
a part in the extension of American territory. It was seri- 



* Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mellish, a map-maker, in 1816 : " The western 
boundary of Louisiana is, rightfully, the Rio Bravo (its main stream), from 
its mouth to its source, and thence along the highlands and mountains 
dividing the waters of the Mississippi from the waters of the Pacific. . . . 
On the waters of the Pacific we can found no claim in right of Louisiana." 
■ — Works, vol. vii,,p. 51. M. Marbois, who negotiated the treaty of 1803 
on the part of France, wrote as follows in his History of Louisiana : " The 
shores of the Western ocean were certainly not included in the cession, but 
the United States are already established there." — English Translation, 
p. 286. 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 273 

ously feared, in 1803, that in the event of war between Eng- 
land and France the month of the Mississippi would fall 
into her hands. It was also charged, prior to 1845, that she 
was intriguing for Texas ; and, in 1846, fear that she would 
pounce upon Upper California hastened its occupation by 
the forces of the United States. 

VIII. Alaska. 

Bering, a German navigator in the Russian service, dis- 
covered the strait that bears his name in 1728, and the 
North American continent in latitude 58° 28' in 1741. The 
title to the region that these discoveries gave to Russia was 
duly completed by further discoveries and by a sort of occu- 
pancy that Senator Sumner thus described in 1867 : " Her 
Government is little more than a name or a shadow. It is 
not even a skeleton. It is hardly visible. Its only repre- 
sentative is a fur company, to which has been added latterly 
an ice company." The total population of Russians and 
Creoles at that time was estimated at 3,500. The limitation 
on the south, established in 1824 and 1825, has been already 
described. 

The idea of the accession of Russian America to the 
United States was broached, it is said, in the administration 
of President Polk. It was more seriously considered in the 
administration of President Buchanan. A considerable in- 
terest in the scheme was manifested on the Pacific slope at 
the close of the Civil War, particularly in Washington Ter- 
ritory, and on March 30, 1867, a treaty of cession was con- 
cluded at Washington, the United States agreeing to pay 
seven million two hundred thousand dollars for Russia's 
right and title. On the east the line of demarcation between 
Russia and Great Britain, established in 1825, was followed, 
viz. : A line drawn from the southern point of island Prince 
of Wales, in parallel 54° 40', northward along Portland 
Channel to 56° north latitude, but giving the whole of the 
island to the United States ; a line from this point follow- 
ing the summit of the mountains, running parallel to the 



274 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

coast, to the meridian 141° west, provided that said line 
should never be more than ten marine leagues from the 
shore, and then the meridian 141° to the frozen ocean.* 
The western boundary runs southwest through Bering 1 
Strait and Bering Sea to the meridian of 172° west, and 
thence southwesterly to the meridian of 193° west, so as to 
include in the territory conveyed the whole of the Aleutian 
Islands east of that meridian. Mr. Sumner proposed the 
name Alaska, the native name for the American continent, 
but at the time appropriated to the great southwestern 
peninsula. 

Those who advocated this purchase laid much stress upon 
the China and Japan trade, and especially upon its advan- 
tages to our Pacific coast. Conviction had for some time 
been growing that the Pacific Ocean was to play a new part 
in the life of the world. President Garfield, for example, 
was fond of calling it u the historic sea of the future." The 
opening of the Suez Canal, the building of the Panama Rail- 
road, the projected canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific 
Oceans, the building of the several contemplated lines of 
Pacific railroads, promised to give to the great commerce of 
the world more of an east-and-west movement. Much was 
said at the time about the so-called ." commercial equator." 
Men who shared these large views generally thought it 
highly desirable that the United States, from their geo- 
graphical position, should control as much of the western 
shore of North America as possible. It is significant that 
the purchase of Alaska practically coincided with the opening 
of the Union and Central Pacific Railroads and the negotia- 
tion of the treaty establishing closer relations with China, in 
1868. Extension of dominion was also dwelt upon. An- 
other favorite argument was the extension of republican in- 
stitutions. Mr. Sumner, it has been said, was unwilling to 
miss the opportunity of dismissing another European sover- 

* Commissioners appointed by the United States and Great Britain are 
now engaged in surveying their joint boundary. 



TERRITORIAL GROWTH OF THE UNITED STATES. 275 

eign from our continent, predestined, as he believed, to be- 
come the broad, undivided home of the American people. 
Still other arguments were a desire to anticipate England, 
that some believed was ready to move in the same direction, 
and a feeling of amity toward Russia because she had been 
friendly to the National cause in the Civil War. The terri- 
tory was also considered valuable on account of its resources 
of lumber and timber, minerals, fisheries, and furs. 

Since the annexation of Alaska keen regrets have been 
expressed that the United States did hot in 1846 insist upon 
the line of 54° 40'. It has been predicted that the gap be- 
tween our territories on that coast will some day be closed. 
At the time of his visit to the Pacific coast, in 1869, Mr. 
Seward said : " Although British Columbia remains . . . 
subject to a European monarchy, I nevertheless found exist- 
ing there commercial and political forces which render a 
permanent political separation of British Columbia from 
Alaska and Washington Territory impossible." 

In the preceding sketch nothing has been said about the 
character and necessities of the nations with which we have 
dealt. Bonaparte sold Louisiana without regard either to 
the resident population, which was strongly adverse to the 
transfer, or to the French people. It was solely his act. 
Spain was very jealous of her American possessions, but she 
was degenerate, and wholly unable to resist the constant and 
growing pressure upon those possessions from the north 
and east. Much the same may be said of Mexico : she 
was forced to submit to the inevitable. Russia appears 
never to have regarded her distant American possessions as 
a real part of her system ; besides, rumors of war were afloat 
in 1867, and she naturally preferred the purchase money to 
the precarious ownership of a distant and unprofitable de- 
pendency. In every case the condition of the power with 
which we have had to deal has been favorable to our wishes. 
Gn the side of Canada, where we have constantly faced a 
great and ambitious imperial power, we have never extended 



276 



HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 



our boundaries a single foot. On this side, however, it must 
be said that the necessities of our material development have 
not hitherto required territorial enlargement ; the logic of 
events has moved rather southward and westward. Still it 
is easy to see that had we been bounded on the west and 
south, in 1783, by Great Britain rather than by Spain, the 
results would have been somewhat different. We should 
have reached the Grulf of Mexico and the Pacific, no doubt, 
but at the expense of more time and effort. 

The Area of the United States, with Dates of Acquisition* 





Sq. miles. 


Dates. 


1. Original United States 


819,815 

877,268 
284,828 

64,030 
262,290 
614,439 

47,330 
531,409 


1783 


2. Louisiana purchase 


1803 


3. Oregon 


1792, 1805, 1811, 


4. The Floridas 


1819, 1846, 1872 
1819 


5. Texas 


1845 


6. First Mexican annexation 

8. Alaska 


1848 
1853 

1867 






Total 


3,501,509 


.... 



Mr. Gladstone once described our territory as " a natural 
base for the greatest continuous empire ever established by 
man." 



* The authority for this table is Prof. A. B. Hart, of Harvard Univer- 
sity. See " The Disposition of our Public Land," Quarterly Journal of 
Economics, vol. i., pp. 169, 251. The areas differ more or less widely from 
those given in the Government publications. The principal discrepance, 
however, arises from the fact that the Government officers persist in in- 
cluding Oregon in the Louisiana purchase. See the Statistical Atlas, 1874, 
and The Public Domain, 1882. Eeclus gives statistics still different. The 
United States, p. 5. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

PHASES OF INDUSTRIAL AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 

References. — Washington : Writings of, edited by Sparks (Let- 
ters to Chastellux, VIII., 488, Jefferson, IX., 31, Harrison, id., 58, and 
Lee, id., 117) ; H. B. Adams : Maryland's Influence upon Land Ces- 
sions to the United States ; Henry Adams : The Life of Albert Gal- 
latin ; Gannett and Hewes : Scribner's Statistical Atlas ; Walker : 
Statistical Atlas of the United States, Ninth Census ; Johnston : 
Political History of the United States, Lalor's Cyclopaedia of Politi- 
cal Science (Internal Improvements, The Cumberland Road, Con- 
struction, State Sovereignty, Federal Party, Democratic-Republican 
Party) ; Jeans : Water Ways and Water Transport (Sec. I., Chap. 
XIV.) ; Sumner : Lectures on the History of Protection in the 
United States ; Taussig : Tariff History of the United States ; 
Ford : Lalor's Cyclopaedia (Tariffs in the United States) ; Hil- 
dreth : History of the United States, Vol. V., Chap. XV. 

But few years of American history, counting even from 
Jamestown and Plymouth, have been years of war. While 
some of the wars in which the country has been engaged 
hold an important place in history, its genius is still essen- 
tially civil and pacific. The United States are an industrial, 
commercial, and political nation rather than a martial one. 
The lessons that they teach the world are mainly lessons of 
peace. No historical studies of the kind can be more profit- 
able or interesting to the American student than tbose that 
deal with this characteristic side of the national develop- 
ment. It is therefore to be regretted that disproportionate 
attention is so often given to the military side of our his- 
tory. In the present work, however, nothing more can be 



278 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

attempted than to sketch some of the leading features of 
this field of study. We may first look at the establishment 
of means of communication between the several divisions 
of the country. 

In the colonial period the sea and its tributaries were 
large factors in travel and transportation. The great 
length of the sea front, the shallow depth of the Atlantic 
slope, and the number and distribution of navigable rivers, 
together with the undeveloped state of the country, furnish 
the ready explanation. Vermont, admitted to the Union in 
1791, was the first inland State. Roads were poor, and the 
most important ones connected the rivers and other bodies 
of navigable water. A man could journey on horseback 
from Providence to Savannah — one thousand two hundred 
and forty-three miles — in seventy days, spending every 
night in some town furnishing comfortable accommo- 
dations. Previous to the French and Indian War the 
only persons who passed and repassed the mountains that 
shut in the Atlantic Plain on the west were hunters and 
Indian traders, who followed paths that the deer and the 
buffalo had made through the passes. Naturally enough, 
these adventurers were found at the southward ; for, al- 
though the Pennsylvanians and the Virginians were con- 
fronted by the continuous parallel ridges of the Alleghanies, 
they were much nearer the Great West than the New Eng- 
landers or the people of New York, while they were not 
exposed to the jealousy of the Six Nations or the competi- 
tion of the French. English-speaking men chased game in 
the valley of the Tennessee much sooner than on the shore 
of the Great Lakes. The Ohio Valley was far better known 
to them in 1755 than the Lake Erie Basin. 

No country in the world offers to man better facilities 
for inland navigation than the United States, or at least that 
portion of it lying between the Appalachian and Cordilleran 
mountain systems. In addition to the abundance of navi- 
gable waters, Nature opposes no serious obstacles to connect- 
ing the several river systems or parts of systems ; while the 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 279 

problems offered to the engineer and capitalist by the moun- 
tains themselves, although serious, are not insuperable. The 
eastern mountain system offered the first great problem of 
the kind that the country solved. 

The first road through the forests that clothed the Alle- 
ghanies was cut by Braddock's troops, from Cumberland to 
the Monongahela, in 1755 ; the second one by Forbes's troops, 
from the upper Susquehanna to the forks of the Ohio, in 1758. 
At the close of the Eevolution the only real thorough- 
fare to the West was the road leading from Philadelphia to 
Pittsburg, the western part of which was the Forbes road. 
Before the opening of the Erie Canal the major part of the 
freight conveyed between tide water and the West was 
hauled over this road in Conestoga wagons, at a cost of one 
hundred and twenty dollars a ton. Pittsburg was the most 
important Western town, and the first inland manufactur- 
ing center in the whole country. In 1796 no road had been 
opened between the Mohawk and Lake Erie ; Canandaigua 
was the western outpost on what soon became a great line 
of travel. The surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company, 
on their way to the Western Reserve in the spring of that year, 
having rendezvoused at Schenectady, ascended the Mohawk 
to Fort Stanwix, now Rome, whence they passed with their 
boats and stores over the portage to Wood Creek, and then 
proceeded by that stream, Oneida Lake, and Oswego River to 
Lake Ontario, from which point they made their way by 
water to Niagara, and then by the Indian trail to the present 
site of Buffalo. A large part of the New England emigration 
to northern Ohio crossed the Hudson at Fishkill and the 
Delaware at Easton, and reached their destination by the 
Pennsylvania route. Farther to the south Nature had an- 
ticipated man. The Wilderness Road led through the Val- 
ley of Virginia and Cumberland Gap, uniting the Potomac 
and the Tennessee, and even at the beginning of this cen- 
tury it furnished the most desirable route for the traveler 
from Philadelphia or Baltimore to Cincinnati or Louisville. 

The early population of the West was distributed by the 
20 



280 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

rivers far more than by all other agencies. The hunter and 
the trader used the horse and the pack train as well as the 
canoe and the bateau, but the emigrant, as a rule, followed the 
water courses. Arrived at the Ohio or the Tennessee, the 
Great West was spread out before him. All the early towns 
were built on rivers. The river craft that appear so pictur- 
esque in the letters and diaries of tourists and emigrants 
of a literary turn, such as the " ark " and the " keel boat," 
were the sole means of transportation for both goods and 
persons until the advent of steam navigation. The first 
steamboat to descend the Mississippi reached New Orleans 
in 1811 ; the first to ascend Lake Erie reached Detroit in 
1818. But the steamboat only increased the emigrants' im- 
mediate dependence upon the rivers. The second transpor- 
tation question in the West was the crossing of the water 
partings dividing different systems of waters, or different 
branches of the same system ; and this was accomplished 
for the time, first by utilizing and then by improving the 
trails across the portages over which the Indian, and often 
the Frenchman, had shouldered his canoe. In that period 
of history small streams often had an importance that it is 
now hard to understand, while small posts buried in forests 
were sometimes ports of entry. Upon the whole, it would 
be hard to exaggerate the part that navigable waters, and 
particularly the steamboat, played in the development of 
the West. 

Lines of communication that should connect the Atlantic 
seaboard and the interior of the continent occupied the at- 
tention of far-seeing men many years before the States de- 
clared their independence. The question engaged the mind 
of Washington while he was still a youth. In 1754 he 
wrote a report on the navigation of the Potomac, and in 
1770 he urged that subject upon the Governor of Maryland. 
He saw in the Potomac and the portage to the Ohio " a means 
of becoming the channel of conveyance of the extensive and 
valuable trade of a rising empire." He interested himself 
in the Potomac and James Eiver Improvement Companies, 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 281 

and he wrote to Mr. Jefferson, in 1784, that the plan -which 
embraced those works was in a relatively good train when 
he went to Cambridge to assume command of the army, and 
would have been in an excellent way had it not been for 
the opposition of the Baltimore merchants, who dreaded the 
consequences of water transportation to Georgetown. The 
war put an end to all plans for the time. 

The leadership of Virginia in the work of internal im- 
provement on a large scale is easily explained. It was due 
to the close geographical and commercial connections of 
that State with the West, to the development of her indus- 
trial system, and the prescience of her statesmen. Still, citi- 
zens of New York were already stirred by similar thoughts. 
In the spring of 1776 General Schuyler explained to Dr. 
Franklin, who was one of the commission of three that 
Congress had dispatched to Canada, and that Schuyler as- 
sisted to cross the portage from the Hudson to Lake Cham- 
plain, that an uninterrupted water-carriage between New 
York and Quebec might be perfected at fifty thousand 
pounds sterling expense. 

The war was hardly over before Washington took up the 
subject again. In July, 1783, while the army was disband- 
ing, in company with Governor Clinton, he examined the 
portages between the Mohawk and the Susquehanna on the 
one side and Lake Ontario on the other. "Prompted by 
these actual observations," he wrote, u I could not help tak- 
ing a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation of 
these United States from maps and the information of oth- 
ers." He desired to extend his visit to the Niagara, but de- 
sisted because the British still held that frontier. He de- 
clared that he should not rest contented until he " had ex- 
plored the Western country, and traversed those lines, or a 
great part of them, which have given bounds to a new em- 
pire." This pledge he redeemed in September, 1784, when 
he made his last visit to the West, his object being not so 
much to look after his own property interests in those re- 
gions as to study on the ground the portages uniting the 



282 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Potomac and the James with the Ohio and Kanawha.* On 
his return he sketched out lines of communication between 
those rivers, and also between the Ohio and the Cuyahoga, 
and the mouth of the Cuyahoga and Detroit. His letters 
written at this period are a magazine of information relat- 
ing to this interesting subject. 

To the mind of Washington industrial and commercial 
reasons had ceased to be the strongest ones for carrying out 
his plans. He emphasized the swelling volume of emigra- 
tion, and particularly the weakness of the ties which, in 
that time of disorganizing tendencies, bound the Western 
population, under the conditions of Western life, to the 
Union. In his famous letter to Governor Harrison, written 
soon after his return from the Ohio, he argued that the 
flanks and rear of the United States were possessed by other 
powers, and formidable ones too ; that it was necessary to ap- 
ply the cement of interest to bind all parts of the Union to- 
gether by indissoluble bonds, especially the Ohio Valley and 
the Middle States. He pointed out how discontented those 
people would be, and what troubles might be apprehended 
if Spain and Great Britain should hold out lures for their 
trade and alliance. The Western States stood upon a pivot ; 
the touch of a feather would turn them any way. They 
had looked down the Mississippi until the Spaniards threw 

* " Wherever he came, he sought and closely questioned the men famed 
for personal observation of the streams and paths on each side of the Alle- 
ghanies. From Fort Cumberland he took the usual road over the moun- 
tains to the valley of the Yohogany, and studied closely the branches of 
that stream. The country between the Little Kanawha and the James 
Eiver being at that moment infested with hostile Indians, he returned 
through the houseless solitude between affluents of the Cheat Eiver and 
of the Potomac. As he traced the way for commerce over that wild re- 
gion, he was compelled to pass a night on a rough mountain side in a pour- 
ing rain, with no companion but a servant and no protection but his cloak ; 
one day he was without food ; sometimes he could find no path except the 
track of buffaloes ; and in unceasing showers his ride through the close 
bushes seemed to him little better than the swimming of rivulets." — Ban- 
croft, History of the United States {author's last revision), vol. vi, pp. 125, 126. 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 283 

difficulties in their way ; and they looked that way for no 
other reason than because they could glide gently down the 
stream, and because they had no means of carrying on trade 
with the East but by long land transportation and unim- 
proved roads. These causes had hitherto checked the in- 
dustry of the settlers ; but " smoothe the road," he said, " and 
make easy the way for them, and then see what an influx 
of articles will be poured upon us ; how amazingly our ex- 
ports will be increased by them, and how amply we shall be 
compensated for any trouble and expense we may encounter 
to effect it ! " 

Washington was more than willing to defer for the time 
the navigation of the Mississippi, which was then denied by 
Spain, assigning as his reasons that, until a little time had 
been allowed to open and make easy the ways between the 
Atlantic States and the Western territory, the obstructions 
to this navigation had better remain. Without the cement 
of interest the Western inhabitants could have no predilec- 
tion for the Union, and a commercial connection was the 
only tie that would bind them. It was clear to him that 
the trade of the lakes and of the river Ohio as low as the 
Kanawha, if not the Falls, might be brought to the Atlantic 
ports easier and cheaper than it could be carried to New 
Orleans ; but let trade with that city be well established, 
and it would be found to be no easy matter to divert it ; and 
vice versa. When the settlements were stronger and more 
extended to the westward, the navigation of the Mississippi 
would be an object of importance, and we should then be 
able, reserving our claims, to speak a more efficacious lan- 
guage than policy for the time dictated. 

Interest in internal improvements grew with the popu- 
lation and wealth of the country. In 1792 the Legislature 
of New York chartered two companies, one to build a canal 
with locks from the Mohawk to Lake Ontario, the other to 
bind together in a similar way the Hudson and Lake Cham- 
plain. In 1808 Mr. Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, laid 
before the Senate, in response to a resolution that it had 



284 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

adopted, an elaborate scheme of internal improvements to 
be undertaken by Congress, the grand features of which Mr. 
Adams has classified as follows : 

I. Those parallel with the seacoast, viz., canals cutting Cape Cod, 
New Jersey, Delaware, and North Carolina, so as to make continu- 
ous inland navigation along the coast to Cape Fear, at an estimated 
cost of $3,000,000 ; and a great turnpike road from Maine to Geor- 
gia, at an estimated cost of $4,800,000. 

II. Those that were to run east and west, viz., improvement of 
the navigation of four Atlantic rivers, the Susquehanna, the Poto- 
mac, the James, and the Santee, and of four corresponding Western 
rivers, the Alleghany, the Monongahela, the Kanawha, and the Ten- 
nessee, to the highest practicable points, at an estimated cost of 
$1,500,000 ; and the connection of these highest points of naviga- 
tion by four roads across the Appalachian range, at an estimated 
cost of $2,800,000 ; and, finally, a canal at the falls of the Ohio, 
$300,000, and improvement of roads to Detroit, St. Louis, and New 
Orleans, $200,000. 

III. Those that were to run north and northwest to the lakes, 
viz., to connect the Hudson River with Lake Champlain, $800,000 ; 
to connect the Hudson River with Lake Ontario at Oswego by canal, 
$2,200,000; a canal round Niagara Falls, $1,000,000. 

IV. Local improvements. $3,400,000. 

The entire estimated expense was $20,000,000. By an appropria- 
tion of $2,000,000 a year the whole might be accomplished in ten 
years. By a system of selling to private parties the stock thus cre- 
ated by the Government for turnpikes and canals, the fund might be 
made itself a permanent resource for further improvements. 

This scheme is interesting for numerous reasons. It 
shows careful study of the physiography of the country, 
and a firm grasp of its industrial and commercial needs and 
relations, and evinces a remarkable anticipation of enter- 
prises that have in some form been accomplished. It is not 
a little remarkable, moreover, that neither Gallatin nor his 
predecessors projected a line of communication from the 
Hudson direct to Lake Erie — the more remarkable as it was 
by this very route that the first line to the West was actually 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 285 

constructed. The obvious cause of the omission was the 
strong hold that natural water courses, as means of convey- 
ance, then had upon men's minds ; it was assumed that the 
northern line to the West would run from the Mohawk to 
Lake Ontario, and then to the mouth of the Niagara River, 
around the falls of which Gallatin's scheme did provide a 
canal. 

The great difficulty and cost of transporting troops and 
military stores to the West in the War of 1812 taught the 
country that war, as well as peace, required that the sea- 
hoard and the interior should be more closely connected. 
The danger of a Western secession had passed away since 
Washington's day ; the annexation of Louisiana had more 
than doubled the national area, but Great Britain and Spain 
were still on our flanks and rear, and there was no telling 
how soon we might become involved in war with either 
power. Several great lines of communication were soon 
taken in hand, New York leading the way. 

In 1823 the Delaware and Hudson Canal, uniting the 
Hudson and Lake Champlain, was completed ; in 1825, the 
Erie Canal, uniting the Hudson and Lake Erie. The com- 
pletion of the second of these works contributed amazingly 
to the development of the West on the one hand, while it 
made the State of New York the Empire State, and the city 
of New York the metropolis of the country on the other. 
Next came a line of canal and railroad connecting Philadel- 
phia and Pittsburg. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, be- 
gun in 1828, reached Cumberland in 1850 and there stopped ; 
nor was the canal from the James to the Kanawha ever 
finished. 

In the West, as in the East, the canal problem was to 
unite different river systems ; no one thought of competing 
directly with navigable rivers or lakes. In Ohio and In- 
diana the great canal lines connected Lake Erie and the 
Ohio River ; in Illinois and Wisconsin, Lake Michigan and 
the Mississippi. A canal was projected across the lower 
Michigan peninsula, but never built. By the time that the 



286 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

States beyond the Mississippi were ready for public improve- 
ments the canal-boat period had ceased and the locomotive 
period had begun. 

In its largest features the early railroad system resem- 
bled the canal system. The great trunk lines, as the New 
York Central, the Erie, and Pennsylvania roads, led to the 
West. The Baltimore and Ohio road, which reached the 
Ohio in 1850, fulfilled the ideas of Washington ; one of its 
branches extending from Cumberland to Pittsburg, the 
other to Parkersburg and Wheeling. In the Old Northwest 
also Nature surveyed the railway lines. In Obio, Indiana, 
Illinois, and Wisconsin, the first roads bound together the 
lakes on the one side and the Ohio and the Mississippi on 
the other. The Michigan roads connecting the waters east 
and west are much older than the roads running north and 
south. South of the Ohio the first necessity was to unite 
that river with the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and the Gulf 
of Mexico. Between the Mississippi and the Missouri, it was 
to unite those rivers. Beyond the Missouri and in the 
Southwest the great railroads have sought the Pacific 
Ocean. 

At first it was confidently assumed that the railroad train 
could not compete with the steamboat for either freight or 
passengers, or with the canal boat for heavy freight — an 
assumption which explains why, for example, Cleveland 
was connected by roads with both Pittsburg and Cincinnati 
earlier than with either Buffalo or Toledo. But as the 
value of rapid transit became more and more apparent, and 
the cost of railroad communication was gradually reduced, 
these ideas were thrown aside ; and to-day it would not be 
easy to find an important river or lake shore that has not 
been paralleled by one or more lines of road. 

No inventions proclaim a greater triumph of man over 
Nature than those which enable him to utilize the power of 
steam. The steamship defies wind and wave. 

The pulses of her iron heart 
Go beating through the storm. 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 287 

i 

The locomotive engine emancipates man from dependence 
upon water courses, natural and artificial. At first the loco- 
motive like the canal boat followed the van of civilization 
at a distance ; but in the later period, striking" through un- 
peopled regions, it has led the march. In the more re- 
cent westward movements of population the engineer and 
the contractor have literally been pioneers for the emigrant. 
As a result, natural means of transportation are no longer 
necessary for the existence or prosperity of cities. For ex- 
ample, a few years ago the export of cotton from the port of 
New Orleans had fallen from 70 to 22 per cent of the total 
export of the country, while the import of coffee had fallen 
from 80 to 7 per cent, The locomotive had built up rivals 
for the Metropolis of the Southwest. A distinguished econ- 
omist has announced that a Massachusetts mechanic can 
pay for the transportation of a year's supply of food one 
thousand miles with the proceeds of one day's labor. The 
introduction of electricity, especially if it should become 
practicable to transport power long distances, may redress 
the balance of water and steam in respect to stationary ma- 
chinery ; but for purposes of land transportation the victory 
of steam is apparently irreversible. 

In course of time internal improvements became a great 
political question. Beginning with the act authorizing the 
construction of the Cumberland Road, passed in 1806, Con- 
gress voted large sums of money for turnpikes, canals, river 
improvements, and railroads. For some years no constitu- 
tional objection was heard ; President Madison was the first 
to raise that issue, in 1817. At a later day the subject en- 
tered deeply into party politics, the Whigs taking the 
affirmative and the Democrats the negative side of the ques- 
tion. Since that division, however, Senators and Represent- 
atives have often deferred to State or local interests in de- 
fiance of party creeds. 

While party policy, the personal ends of politicans, and 
sheer accident have played their part in the tariff history of 
the country, that interesting subject can be understood only 



288 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

when studied in connection with certain general causes and 
conditions that revealed themselves at an early day and con- 
tinue to exist to the present time. The moderate protection 
given to certain industries in 1789 provoked little opposition 
from any quarter ; nor was there any organized resistance to 
the various extensions of the principle that were made down 
to 1816. Partly in consequence of the stimulus that protec- 
tion had afforded, partly in consequence of the restrictions on 
commerce that finally culminated in the War of 1812, there 
was in those years a considerable growth of manufactures. 
Capital that had been invested in shipping and trade was 
now employed in production. As the return of peace and 
the re-establishment of commercial relations with Europe 
threatened disaster to the new industries, an act was passed 
increasing both the number and the amount of protective 
duties. About this time public opinion began to crystallize, 
and four great interests progressively declared themselves 
in the field of tariff legislation. 

1. The manufacturing interest favored protection to 
home industries as a matter of course, meaning by that 
phrase not merely the capitalists who owned the manu- 
factories, but also the laborers employed in them, and other 
classes, such as tradesmen, who were directly dependent upon 
them . Still further, as manufacturing depended upon certain 
conditions, as power agents, capital, raw material, labor, and 
superintendence, the protective doctrine tended strongly 
to root itself in particular States and districts of country 
where these conditions were found. 

2. The shipping and importing interests, with the classes 
dependent directly upon them, tended toward a revenue 
tariff, or what is commonly called free trade. A large de- 
velopment of home production would tend to lessen the 
demand for foreign products, and so reduce commerce. 
Again, shipping and commercial interests depended also upon 
certain natural and economical causes, as navigable waters, 
ports, ship timber and shipyards, shipbuilders and sailors. 
As New England was much more interested in commerce and 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 289 

shipping than in manufactures, her Senators and Bepresent- 
atives, led by Mr. Webster, voted against the act of 1816 by a 
strong majority. But at a later day New England ranged 
herself decisively on the protective side. Mr. "Webster, who 
went with his section, defended the change when the tariff 
of 1828 was under discussion by alleging that the tariffs of 
1816 and 1824 had led New Englanders to invest great 
amounts of capital in manufactures, which could be protect- 
ed against loss or destruction only by continuing and 
strengthening the protective policy. 

Nothing could be more natural than this divergence of 
the manufacturing and commercial classes. On the subject 
of protection, a great manufacturing city like Philadelphia 
and a great commercial city like New York, would be quite 
certain to go different roads. 

3. The planting interest strongly supported the act of 1816. 
Southern statesmen, as Mr. Calhoun, argued that it was 
necessary to promote domestic manufactures in order that 
the country might be prepared for war ; they also hoped 
that protection would stimulate manufactures, and particu- 
larly cotton manufactures at the South. In a few years, 
however, a change came over the Southern mind ; the 
planters had learned that manufactories could not thrive 
in the midst of slavery ; they realized keenly that they 
must buy the bulk of the goods that they needed either of 
Europe or at the North ; and as they believed that pro- 
tection enhanced prices they declared in favor of free trade. 
Still more, they feared that European nations would, in the 
spirit of retaliation for the high American duties, levy taxes 
upon the American cotton that they imported, thus reducing 
its price at home. How great the change of opinion was, is 
shown by the fact that in 1832 South Carolina nullified laws 
similar to one that only sixteen years before she had warmly 
supported. But into nullification there also entered deeply 
sectional and personal views and feelings that are beyond 
the present purpose. 

4. The agricultural districts have not pursued an alto- 



290 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

gether even course on protection. The great agricultural 
States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky 
voted for the act of 1816 ; they desired protection for their 
iron, wool, hemp, and flax. The belief was also common in 
those States that although protection might enhance the 
prices of protected articles, yet it would bring a compensa- 
tion in the form of an enlarged home market for domestic 
products, as for the farmer's grain and meat. The agricul- 
tural States occupied much the same position in 1824, but 
afterward they wavered or changed ground. 

Thus, of the three great interests that protection may be 
said to antagonize, commerce was the first and farming the 
last to array itself in opposition.* 

It was many years before the constitutional right of Con- 
gress to lay protective duties was denied, or before such 
duties became a party question. The Democratic party, 
when reorganized under General Jackson, took up the line of 
free trade ; the Whig party, which then appeared in opposi- 
tion, the line of protection. The geographical strength of 
the two parties, so far as it was affected by the tariff, turned 
mainly upon the business interests of localities, which again 
depended upon natural and economical causes. The pro- 
tective sentiment in Kentucky was due as much, perhaps, to 
the interest of the State in dew-rotted hemp as to the admi- 
ration of Kentuckians for their great fellow-citizen Henry 
Clay. The link that bound Louisiana to the Whigs was 
sugar cane. In Pennsylvania the situation was most anom- 
alous. From the beginning that State was strongly pro- 
tectionist. Her mines of coal, iron, and limestone turned 
her in that direction as strongly as the rice swamps and cot- 

* Prof. Sumner gives this account of the situation on the passing of 
the Act of 1828 : " New England and the Adams men wanted high duties 
on woolens and cottons, and low duties on wool, iron, hemp, salt, and mo- 
lasses (the raw material of rum). Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky 
wanted high taxes on iron, wool, hemp, molasses (protection to whisky), 
and low taxes on the raw materials used. The Southerners wanted low 
taxes on everything, but especially on finished goods." 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 291 

ton fields of South Carolina turned her in the opposite one. 
And yet Pennsylvania commonly cast her electoral votes 
for Democratic Presidents. 

At present it is common to describe the Republican party 
as protectionist, the Democratic party as free trade. But 
special causes acting in certain States or districts sometimes 
bring" the two parties together upon that issue. General 
Garfield said, in the House of Representatives in 1870 : 
" West of Ohio, north of Arkansas, and east of the Rocky 
Mountains, there are nine States represented here, all of 
them Republican, some of them overwhelmingly Republi- 
can in politics. Yet if I understand correctly the opinions 
of the fifty-seven Democratic and Republican Representa- 
tives in this House from those nine States, there are at least 
fifty of them who are in favor of some reduction in the 
present rates of our tariff." 

We may now take a view of another group of political 
effects caused by natural forces working through industrial 
and social life. Soon after 1789 the country divided politi- 
cally on the subject of constitutional interpretation, the Fed- 
eralists emphasizing the National element, the Republicans 
the State element of our dual system of government. As Mr. 
Hildrath characterizes the two parties, " The Federal party, 
with Washington and Hamilton at its head, represented the 
experience, the prudence, the practical wisdom, the disci- 
pline, the conservative reason and instinct of the country. 
The opposition, headed by Jefferson, expressed its hopes, 
wishes, theories, many of them enthusiastic and impracti- 
cable, more especially its passions, its sympathies and antipa- 
thies, its impatience of restraint." The geographical dis- 
tribution of two parties answering to these descriptions 
could hardly fail to be instructive. " The Federalists," Mr. 
Hildreth proceeds, " had their strength in those narrow dis- 
tricts where a concentrated population had produced and 
contributed to maintain that complexity of institutions and 
that reverence for social order Avhich, in proportion as men 
are brought into contiguity, become more absolutely neces- 



292 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

saries of existence " ; while " the ultra democratical ideas of 
the opposition prevailed in all that more extensive region in 
which the dispersion of population and the despotic author- 
ity vested in individuals over families of slaves kept society 
in a state of immaturity, and made legal restraints the 
more irksome in proportion as their necessity was the less 
felt." 

With such an analysis as this before him, any student 
who is familiar with the general condition of the country 
at the close of the last century could with measurable cor- 
rectness indicate, without historical investigation, where the 
two parties would have their principal strength. New Eng- 
land, Delaware, Maryland, and for a time South Carolina, 
constituted the strength of Federalism ;. Virginia, North 
Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, the strength of 
Republicanism. The decision between the two, as the same 
writer tells us, "depended on the two great and growing 
States of Pennsylvania and New York ; and from the very 
fact that they were growing, that both of them had an ex- 
tensive backwoods frontier, and that both were constantly 
receiving accessions of political enthusiasts from Europe, 
they both inclined more and more to the Republican side." 
In a word, it was the rapid growth of the West, and of those 
States and parts of States where society most closely resem- 
bled the West, that, more than anything else, caused the 
downfall of the Federal party. Moreover, it was a clear 
perception of this tendency, and of the loss of political con- 
sequence that the growth of the West would cause the New 
England States, which led the Federalists of that section, as 
a class, to look with jealousy or hostility upon the West, and 
to oppose any acquisition of territory out of which addi- 
tional States could be made. 

Still the contentions of the Federalists and the Republi- 
cans were not over the barren abstraction of a strong or a 
weak government, but over practical living questions ; and 
an examination of these questions, one by one, confirms the 
general view already advanced. 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 293 

The first political measures to arouse the country were 
Hamilton's propositions that the National Government 
should assume the debts that the States had contracted in 
carrying" on the war, that it should then fund the consoli- 
dated public debt, and that it should create a National bank 
commensurate with the financial affairs of the Government 
and with the business affairs of the country. These were 
all propositions that couservative communities, molded by 
industrial and commercial ideas and habits, and possessing 
more than their proportional share of wealth, would natu- 
rally favor, and that agricultural and planting districts, less 
wealthy and less schooled in the ways of commerce, would 
as naturally oppose. Then, upon the breaking out of the 
French Revolution, England and France became the leaders 
of the conservative and reactionary and of the innovating 
and revolutionary influences of Europe and of the world. 
For more than twenty years this issue was closely drawn, 
and it could not fail to enlist the interests and. the passions 
of the great body of the American people. Still more, while 
Federalists might condemn the arbitrary course that Eng- 
land often followed, and Republicans denounce the frequent 
violence of France, nevertheless, given the ideas and the 
temper of the two parties, it was natural that the two bodies 
should move on diverging lines. The New England manu- 
facturer or merchant could no more sympathize with France 
than the "Western farmer or Southern planter could sympa- 
thize with England. 

Personal slavery is despotism in a revolting form, and its 
prevalence in a democratic state might at first seem an im- 
possibility. The fact is otherwise. Discussing the discon- 
tents in America in 1775, Mr. Burke said that " where multi- 
tudes of slaves are found those who are free are by far the 
most proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to 
them not merely an enjoyment but a kind of rank and priv- 
ilege. . . . Such were all the ancient commonwealths ; such 
were our Gothic ancestors ; such in our days were the Poles ; 
and such will be all masters of slaves who are not slaves 



294 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of domina- 
tion combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and 
renders it invincible. 1 ' We may add, and all the more where 
the slave owner and the slave belong to different and repel- 
lent races. 

The fondness of the Southern slaveholders for States 
rights was perfectly natural ; the State governments they 
might fairly hope to control in the interests of slavery, but 
the National Government might become too large for them 
to manage. Then, their habit of personal domination caused 
them to look upon a vigorous central authority much as 
feudal barons looked upon the king. In Delaware and 
Maryland, and in South Carolina for a time, special forces 
overcame the natural tendencies of slave societies, causing 
them to adhere to the Federal party ; some of the slave 
States at a later day followed more or less constantly the 
fortunes of the Whig party ; but, all in all, the gravita- 
tion of the South toward the party that Mr. Jefferson 
founded is one of the most significant facts of our political 
history. 

The divergent tendencies that appeared in our early pol- 
itics, while sometimes modified or repressed, have never 
ceased to act. The relative density of population and the 
relative wealth of different districts, acting through industry 
and social life, have made themselves felt in the sphere of 
financial, economical, and political ideas. Until slavery be- 
came the overmastering political question, new States on 
their admission to the Union nearly all gravitated toward 
the Democratic party. Of the total amount of public debts 
repudiated by States and localities down to the present time, 
an overwhelming preponderance has been repudiated at the 
South and West. The explanation is easy. The hopeful- 
ness, ambition, and fiscal inexperience of new communities 
cause them to undertake enterprises beyond what their re- 
sources will justify ; while the pressure of heavy taxation, 
and the prevalence of loose ideas and traditions in respect 
to public obligations, together with disappointment at fail- 



PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT. 295 

ure to realize expectations, lead them to hold lightly engage- 
ments which have been contracted. At the South since the 
"War a large amount of public indebtedness has been dis- 
owned on account of its political parentage. Schemes to 
repudiate or impair the validity of the National debt con- 
tracted during the War, at one time so rife, had a much 
greater proportionate following at the West than at the 
East. Between 1837 and 1863 the country suffered enor- 
mous losses from incapable and dishonest banking. With 
few exceptions the good banking systems were found in the 
old States, the bad ones in the new States. Similar tenden- 
cies have shown themselves in connection with the National 
currency. Inflation and cheap money have proved very at- 
tractive to the younger, poorer, and less mature parts of the 
country. 

We need not suppose that the greater fidelity of the old 
States to sound finance has been due to superior native vir- 
tue. It is rather a matter of interest and habit. These 
States own the greater share of the public indebtedness held 
in the country ; their banks and other financial institutions, 
as trust and insurance companies, are buttressed upon se- 
curities ; many private persons are holders of bonds, while 
the discipline that the people have received in the school of 
experience enables them the better to understand the con- 
ditions of prosperity, public and private. Communities 
where credits far outweigh debts are not likely to hold 
either public or private faith in small esteem, or to place a 
low valuation upon vested rights. At the East the Conti- 
nental finance is remembered after the lapse of more than a 
century. 

It is worth observing that the planting and farming dis- 
tricts have commonly looked with distrust upon the manu- 
facturing and commercial _ districts, and particularly the 
cities. This distrust it was that in 1790 located the National 
capital in a forest on the Potomac, much to the disgust of 
the more cultivated classes at the North. The proposition 

to select a city, as New York or Philadelphia, was vigorously 
21 



296 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

opposed. Cities were held to be the home of extravagance 
and corruption, the country of frugality and houesty. 
Speeches that great statesmen then made upon this question 
breathe an idyllic faith in woods, streams, and farms that is 
very refreshing. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE SLAVE POWER. 

References. — Greeley: The American Conflict, Vol. I., Chaps. I.- 
XXII. ; Cairnes : The Slave Power ; De Tocqueville : Democracy in 
America, Vol. I., Chap. XVIII. ;. Johnston : Political History of the 
United States, Lalor's Cyclopaedia (Slavery in United States History, 
Territories, Annexations, Abolition and Abolitionists) ; Shaler : 
Nature and Man in America ; Goldwin Smith : The United States ; 
Wilson : History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in Amer- 
ica. 

Beginning with the landing of the fourteen negroes at 
Jamestown in 1 619, slavery gradually extended to all the 
English Colonies. At the close of the Revolution it had a 
legal existence in all the States except New Hampshire and 
Massachusetts. However, by far the larger numher of 
slaves had always been at the South, as shown by the follow- 
ing table 





1715. 


1775. 


1790. 


North 


10,900 
47,900 


46,100 

455,000 


40,300 


South 


657.000 







At the last of these dates slavery was on the decline at the 
North, and its final extinction there was soon anticipated. 
At the South, although slaves were multiplying rapidly in 
numbers, opposition to the institution was general, and few 
men of character could have been found to say that its in- 



298 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

definite existence was either possible or desirable. Virginia 
opinion is well expressed in three quotations from as many 
prominent statesmen. Mason : u Slavery discourages arts 
and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed 
by slaves. They prevent the immigration of whites, who 
really enrich and strengthen a country. 1 ' Jefferson : ''In- 
deed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is 
just, and that his justice can not sleep forever." Washing- 
ton : " I can only say that there is not a man living who 
wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for 
the abolition of it." Three months before the Declaration of 
Independence Congress adopted a resolution " that no more 
slaves should be imported into any of the thirteen colonies." 
At the same time the framers of the Constitution were com- 
pelled to reckon with slavery ; they left it where they found 
it, an exclusively State institution, but defined its relations 
to the Union in various compromises. 

At the North the expectations of 1787 were fulfilled ; 
slavery continued to decline, and came to an easy death. At 
the South events took a wholly unexpected turn. In sixty 
years the slaves increased from 657,000 to 3,204,000 ; the 
slave States, from six to fifteen in number, extending not 
merely to the sources of the rivers flowing to the Atlantic, but 
to the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Rio Grande. Antislavery 
sentiment died out, or its utterance was stifled. Slavery took 
a firmer hold of State laws and institutions. In time business, 
politics, and religion were all adjusted to the new center. 
It was pronounced an industrial and social necessity and a 
divine institution. " Sir," said Mr. Dixon, of Kentucky, in 
1854, " sir, upon the question of slavery I know no Whig- 
gery and I know no Democracy ; I am a proslavery man." 
Nor was this all. The Slave Power controlled or modified 
National legislation affecting its interests, dictated the nom- 
ination and election of Presidents, and extorted from the 
Supreme Court a decision that reversed the policy that the 
Government had pursued on one important feature of the 
subject for nearly seventy years. More even than this — its 



THE SLAVE POWER. 299 

influence extended beyond the Ocean, reaching the marts 
and cabinets of the Old World. 

In searching- for the causes of the contrast between the 
course of things at the North and at the South, we must lay 
aside the idea that it was due primarily to moral differences. 
Morality played its part in both sections, but the causes that 
we seek lay in quite another quarter. In stating them I 
shall draw largely upon Professor Oairnes's admirable work, 
The Slave Power. " The true causes of the phenomenon 
will appear," he tells us, " if we reflect on the characteristic 
advantages and disadvantages which attach respectively to 
slavery and free labor as productive instruments in connec- 
tion with the external conditions under which those forms 
of industry came into competition in North America." 

The economic advantages of slavery are two in number : 
(1) The employer of slaves has absolute power over his 
workmen, and (2) he enjoys the disposal of the whole fruit 
of their labors. As a consequence slave labor admits of the 
most complete organization ; it may be combined on an ex- 
tensive scale and directed by a controlling mind to a single 
end, while its cost can never be more than the cost of main- 
taining the slave in health and strength. Its economical de- 
fects are three in number : (1) It is reluctant, (2) it is un- 
skillful, (3) it is wanting in versatility. The slave works 
reluctantly, because he works for another and not for him- 
self. Fear and not hope is his strongest stimulus. He is 
unskillful both because he has no personal interest in his 
work and so has no motive to improve, and because he is 
condemned to ignorance by his status as a slave. He lacks 
invention and adaptability for much the same reasons. He 
uses his muscles and not his brains. When a slave has been 
taught to do a certain thing he must be kept at that thing, 
and so he becomes the merest creature of routine and habit.* 



* Dr. Carpenter remarks upon the power of habit in those persons who 
lack general culture and volitional control, their whole course of action 
being determined rather by what they have been " used to " than by what 



300 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

Because he is reluctant, unskillful, and stupid, the slave 
must be constantly watched or superintended. Hence slave 
labor, to be profitable, must be capable of being brought 
within a narrow field of observation. It may pay to provide 
an overseer for a gang of men, but not for one or two, or 
even a few. 

Both by its advantages and by its disadvantages slave 
labor, as a rule, was excluded from a large part of the field 
of production. It could not be employed advantageously 
where workmen were widely scattered or where work was 
on a small scale ; it could not be employed where skill and 
versatility were required — ability to think, and so to deal 
with cases outside of the ordinary routine ; the same must 
be said, and with even more emphasis, of employments re- 
quiring the use of machinery and tools save of a coarse aud 
bungling sort. Even the animals used must be such as 



even ordinary common sense would tell them was the best for them. He 
mentions a family reduced to absolute want who refused a supply of ex- 
cellent soup thickened with barley merely because " they had not been 
used to barley." He says females of the humbler classes in England hav- 
ing been accustomed to one pattern of prints refuse to accept departures 
from it, and mentions a case where the workman of an outfitter refused for 
two weeks to work because a slight alteration had been made in the pattern 
of a particular garment, although the new pattern imposed no more labor 
than the old.— Mental Physiology, chap. viii. Northern men who went 
into the business of planting at the South after the War sometimes fur- 
nished the negroes whom they employed with improved tools, but only to 
have them broken. President Lincoln did not emancipate the slaves from 
routine. 

" I am here shown tools," says Mr. Olmsted, " that no man in his senses 
with us would allow a laborer to whom he was paying wages to be en- 
cumbered with, and the excessive weight and clumsiness of which, I would 
judge, would make work at least ten per cent greater than with those ordi- 
narily used with us. And 1 am assured that, in the careless and clumsy 
way they must be used by the slaves, anything lighter or less rude could 
not be furnished them with good economy, and that such tools as we con- 
stantly give our laborers, and find our profit in giving them, would not 
last out a day in a Virginia cornfield— much lighter and more free from 
stones though it be than ours."— The Seaboard Slave States, p. 46. 



THE SLAVE POWER. 301 

could stand hard usage — mules, and not horses. According- 
ly slave labor was mainly cut off from small and diversi- 
fied farming, from all kinds of manufacturing, and from 
navigation. The slave is too dull to rise to the level of 
these employments. On the other hand, the advantages and 
disadvantages of slave labor confined it mainly to those oc- 
cupations in which numbers of men could be directed by 
one head, in which the processes were of a coarse and routine 
character, and in which costly appliances were not neces- 
sary. Even to-day, while the common negro laborer can be 
profitably employed on a cotton or rice plantation in Georgia, 
he can not be so employed on a wheat farm in the Dakotas. 
Such were the principal characteristics of slave labor as 
it formerly existed in the United States. It was confronted 
one hundred years ago by a system that Professor Cannes, 
speaking in the language of his science, calls " peasant pro- 
prietorship," but that we may call farm ownership. Here 
all the former conditions are reversed. Both when the 
work is on a small scale arid when the laborer works on his 
own account, no considerable organization of labor is pos- 
sible. There is small room for classification and combina- 
tion. "Occupation may be found for a whole family of 
slaves according to the capacity of each member in perform- 
ing the different operations connected with certain branches 
of industry — say the culture of tobacco, in which the women 
and children may be employed in picking the worms off the 
plants, or gathering the leaves as they become ripe, while 
the men are engaged in the more laborious tasks ; but a 
small proprietor, whose children are at school, and whose 
wife finds enough to occupy her in domestic duties, can 
command for all operations, however important or however 
insignificant, no other labor than his own, or that of his 
grown-up sons." The farm owner is his own director, and 
superin tendency is abolished. He works freely since he 
works for himself ; he tends to become skillful and versatile 
because necessity prompts and interest invites him to use his 
brains ; and he takes care to inform and expand his mind 



302 E °W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

by acquiring a school education. Paid labor was often em- 
ployed under this system, but the facts already stated deter- 
mined its characteristic features. Free labor is indeed capa- 
ble of extensive organization on public works or in manu- 
facturing establishments, but this does not affect the argu- 
ment. 

The line that divided the free from the slave States also 
divided one system of agriculture from another. On the 
north side of this line the soil and climate were adapted to 
cereal crops and small farming ; on the south side, to tobacco, 
cotton, rice, indigo, and sugar. Now, while slave labor was 
ill adapted, as the results proved, to the culture carried on at 
the North, it was admirably adapted to the culture carried 
on at the South. It met the necessities of planting but not 
of farming. No great skill was required to raise the South- 
ern staples, while the conditions of organization and super- 
intendence were fully met. Under the old regime one man 
could cultivate ten times as many acres of wheat or corn as 
of tobacco or cotton. On the other hand, while farm owner- 
ship was well adapted to cereal farming, it was ill adapted, 
at least in competition with the plantation system, to the 
production of the Southern staples. Farm ownership met 
the one set of conditions as slavery did the other. At the 
North the capitalist possessed no advantage as a farmer ; at 
the South the free laborer was at a disadvantage. This 
reasoning is enforced by the fact that in those parts of the 
South where cereal crops were cultivated, as in portions of 
Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and along the slopes of the 
Alleghany Mountains, the slave could not compete with the 
free man ; but in the cotton and tobacco field, the rice 
swamp and sugar plantation, the free man could not com- 
pete with the slave. Using the names of the two staples as 
types, we may say that slavery died out in the North be- 
cause the North raised corn, and lived on in the South be- 
cause the South raised cotton. Still cotton was much more 
than a type, as we shall soon see. 

But these facts alone do not explain why a century ago 



THE SLAVE POWER. 303 

slavery was thought to be doomed at the South, or why it 
soon after entered upon a period of extraordinary growth. 
Still other facts must be brought into view. 

An intelligent observer wrote in 1773 that every colony 
had its peculiar commodity : Massachusetts, fish ; Connecti- 
cut, timber ; New York and Pennsylvania, wheat ; Virginia 
and Maryland, tobacco ; North Carolina, pitch and tar ; South 
Carolina, indigo; Georgia, rice and silk. Neither one of 
the typical commodities is here mentioned. Slave labor 
was employed upon the characteristic productions of the 
South; tobacco had indeed enriched the planters of Vir- 
ginia and Maryland, but neither tobacco nor all the 
peculiar Southern productions together promised slavery 
a long life. The great industrial, political, and moral 
system that we call the Slave Power never could have 
been built up upon any economical basis existing at the 
South at that time. 

The cotton plant was little known in the colonies save as 
a garden plant before the Revolution. Seven bags were ex- 
ported from Charleston in 1748. In 1784 the custom officers 
at Liverpool seized eight bales on an American ship because, 
as they said, it was impossible that so large a quantity could 
have been produced in the United States. The exports for 
the next six years respectively were 14, 6, 104, 389, 842, and 
81 bags. Chief -Justice Jay apparently did not know in 1794 
that cotton was an article of export from his country. Al- 
though cotton fabrics had been introduced into Europe 
from Asia before the Christian era, they never became the 
object of large manufacture and sale previous to our own 
century. The forty thousand bales that the West Indies 
furnished England at the close of the last century are said 
to have been three-fourths of the total cotton supply at that 
time. 

A mighty impulse was given to cotton culture in the 
United States, and through that culture to slavery, by a 
series of remarkable inventions made in the second half of 
the eighteenth century. In 1750 Kaye invented the fly 



304 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

shuttle ; in 1770 Hargreaves, the spinning jenny ; in 1775 
Crompton, the mule jenny ; in 1769-75 Arkwright made the 
inventions that bear his name ; in 1783 Watts fitted the 
steam engine, which he had already improved, to carding 
and spinning ; and in 1785-87 cylinder printing and the 
use of acids for bleaching were introduced. But these in- 
ventions did not solve the problem ; the series was not com- 
plete ; the inventor was needed on the plantation as well as 
in the factory. Cotton fabrics could not enter largely into 
the commerce of the world until they became cheap, and 
they could not become cheap so long as a day's labor of a 
slave was required to clean five or six pounds of cotton for 
market. So everything turned on a cheap and expeditious 
mode of separating the cotton seed from the fiber. In 1793 
Eli Whitney, a Connecticut schoolmaster, invented the cot- 
ton gin, and thus completed the series of inventions con- 
necting the plantations of the South with the markets of the 
world. With this engine a slave could clean a thousand 
pounds of cotton in a day. Immediately the growing of 
cotton began to show fresh signs of life, and soon to increase 
by leaps and bounds. The export was 89,000 pounds in 
1791 ; 138,000 in 1792 ; 487,000 in 1793 ; 1,600,000 in 1794 ; 
6,276,000 in 1795 ; 38,118,000 in 1804. "Within five years 
after Whitney's invention," it has been said, "cotton had 
displaced indigo as the great Southern staple, and the slave 
States had become the cotton field of the world/' The 
world would take an indefinite amount of cotton goods if 
they could be furnished cheap ; the manufacturers of Eng- 
land would furnish them cheap if the staple could be had at 
a low price ; the Southern States — with their abundance of 
new lands well adapted to the culture, their system of slave 
labor, and Whitney's gin — would provide the staple at a low 
price. The circle of inventions was completed, and events 
were put in train for crowning cotton king, and for building 
up the Slave Power. The demand for cotton enhanced the 
value of slave labor and of cotton lands ; the enhanced 
value of slave labor and cotton lands stimulated slave breed- 



THE SLAVE POWER. 305 

ing and Western emigration, and these in turn led to the 
formation of new slave States. 

Before Whitney made his invention population had be- 
gun to flow from the old States into the wilderness west of 
the Alleghanies, those from the South taking with them 
their slaves. Here the conditions of soil and climate that 
they found were similar to those that they had left behind 
them ; the line separating the conditions favorable to cereal 
crops from the conditions favorable to the Southern staples 
extended westward. In other words, the natural causes that 
were bringing slavery to an end in New England and in 
the Middle States and those that were about to give it a 
new lease of life in the South, declared themselves. The 
total results were the formation of a new South and the for- 
mation of a new North on opposite sides of the Ohio Elver. 

Two subsidiary causes accelerated the westward exten- 
sion of slavery, one industrial and one political. Cotton 
production as carried on proved very exhausting to the soil. 
In a few years even the best lands were worn out and had 
to be abandoned. Hence resulted a constant demand for 
new lands even to maintain the former production, leaving 
increased production out of sight, which could be found 
only in the West. Then the political status of slavery was 
always peculiar and even precarious. Against the institu- 
tion were arrayed, in the long run, the forces of modern civ- 
ilization. All over the civilized world slave labor had 
shown itself incapable of competing with free labor, save 
under unusual circumstances. For example, so far as we 
can see, the cotton gin alone saved slavery in the old South- 
ern States from death. The maintenance of the unusual 
conditions essential to the continued existence of slavery — 
as need of virgin lands and immunity from interference — 
gave rise to those political necessities which in turn con- 
tributed to the consolidation of the Slave Power. Not only 
must the State governments be kept friendly, but the Na- 
tional Government must at least be kept from becoming 
hostile. This second end again could be accomplished only 



306 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

by maintaining the largest possible representation in the 
two Houses of Congress, and by controlling the executive 
and the judiciary. And this involved, once more, the rela- 
tive numbers of slave and free States, or what was some- 
times called "the balance of the Constitution." 

In 1787 there were seven Northern and six Southern 
States. In 1820 there were eleven of each ; the balance that 
many statesmen thought necessary to political equilibrium 
and the stability of the Union had been maintained for a 
full generation. Thus far the formation of new slave States 
had come about spontaneously, without reference to a politi- 
cal programme, as population had extended westward in 
obedience to general causes. Neither was the annexation 
of Louisiana or of Florida due to slave influence ; both of 
those accessions of territory flowed rather from general than 
from local causes. Still further, slavery, while a sectional 
interest, had not thus far directly influenced party politics. 
Hitherto it had not been objected to the admission of any 
State to the Union that it offered either a free or a slave con- 
stitution. 

The State of Missouri balanced Maine, but its admission 
with slavery was secured by the South only by conceding 
the restriction which accompanied it, namely : u That in all 
that territory ceded by France to the United States under 
the name of Louisiana which lies north of 36° 30' north 
latitude, excepting only such part thereof as is included 
within the State contemplated by this act [that is, Missouri], 
slavery and involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the 
punishment of crime whereof the parties shall have been 
duly convicted, shall be and hereby is forever prohibited." 
On the conclusion of this famous compromise this was the 
situation : At the South, territory for only two more slave 
States, Arkansas and Florida, remained ; while at the North 
the territory out of which Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Min- 
nesota, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and parts of other 
States have since been carved lay open to free labor. Con- 
fronted by this situation, the Slave Power thought it neces- 



THE SLAVE POWER. 307 

sary to secure new territory adapted to cotton culture that 
could be cut up into new States, unless, indeed, the old 
balance were to be abandoned. This belief, combined in 
the first two instances with other causes, led, first, to the 
admission of Texas with a proviso that it might be di- 
vided into five States; second, to the two Mexican annexa- 
tions ; and, third, to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise 
with a view of making slave States north of the line drawn 
in 1820. 

While slavery wholly died out in the Northern States, 
still the North for a time paid little attention to the change 
that was going on at the South. Opposition to the spread 
of slavery in the Northwest was general; also a quiet ac- 
quiescence in its extension in the Southwest ; but of active 
opposition to the institution as such there was very little. 
About the time that the change of front had been fully ac- 
complished a new opposition began to declare itself. The 
New England Antislavery Society was organized in 1832, 
the American Antislavery Society in the year following, 
both on abolition lines. The opinions that slavery was a 
grave economical mistake, a serious political evil, and a 
great moral wrong began to take root in the Northern 
mind. More and more the conviction prevailed that free 
labor and slave labor were antagonistical, and that slavery 
was a standing menace to the peace of the country. Mr. 
Seward said that the conflict between the two was irrepres- 
sible, and Mr. Lincoln that the republic could not perma- 
nently endure half slave and half free. Practical oppo- 
sition assumed different forms. The abolitionists called for 
immediate abolition ; originally this was a moral and not a 
political movement. Political opposition, expressed in the 
Liberty party 1840-'48, in the Free-Soil party 1848-'54, 
and in the Eepublican party 1854 and years following, 
strove to restrict the further spread of slavery in any quar- 
ter, but did not directly oppose its continued existence at 
the South. Directed as it was against what Southern men 
freely called the corner stone of Southern society, opposi- 



308 HOW TO STUDY/ AND TEACH HISTORY. 

tion of any kind could not fail to awaken a bitter sectional 
controversy. 

The contest that had now been joined between the two 
systems of labor turned more and more against the South. 
Texas, admitted in 1845, was the last of the slave States. 
Population that would justify the division of that State was 
not forthcoming, the Mexican annexations did not for the 
time enlarge the area of slave territory, and the attempt to 
carry slavery north of the parallel of 36° 30' met with fail- 
ure. While slavery extended only to the Rio Grande, the 
admission of California and Oregon gave the Pacific slope 
to freedom, and furnished the strongest pledge that the new 
States yet to be formed in the West and Northwest would 
be free States also. Kansas was demanding admission with 
a free-state constitution, and other States would be ready in 
the near future. In 1860 there were eighteen free States to 
fifteen slave States. With all the rest, the Northern States 
surpassed the Southern in population and in wealth even 
more than in numbers. 

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854 brought 
into the field a great political party distinctly pledged to 
oppose the very policy that was essential to the growth of 
the Slave Power, and in the end to its very existence. The 
National Republican platform of 1856 contained the declara- 
tion : " That the Constitution confers upon Congress sover- 
eign power over the Territories of the United States for their 
government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both 
the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Terri- 
tories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery." 
With slavery in the States and in the District of Columbia 
the party did not propose to interfere. The same year the 
Democrats laid down the rule of "non-interference of Con- 
gress with slavery in the States and Territories or the Dis- 
trict of Columbia." In 1860 the Republicans stood upon the 
same ground as before ; while the Democrats, unable to 
agree as to the meaning of non-interference, split into two 
factions, one declaring it the duty of the Supreme Court to 



THE SLAVE POWER. 309 

determine what power a Territorial legislature had over 
the subject of slavery, the other that the citizens of every 
State had an equal right to carry their property (slaves of 
course included) into any Territory without being disturbed 
by either Congressional or Territorial legislation. The elec- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln signified the future limitation of the in- 
stitution within the bounds in which it then existed and the 
loss of its prestige in National politics; and the Slave Power, 
discerning this fact, seeing also that the old balance between 
slavery and freedom was at an end, and believing, or affect- 
ing to believe, that the next step would be interference with 
the institution in the States where it already existed, pre- 
cipitated the secession of eleven States from the Union, and 
brought on the Civil War. 

Throughout the long struggle that culminated in the 
War the better adapted any State or district was to slave 
cultivation, the more firmly was the institution intrenched 
and the more aggressive was its spirit. The border States, 
both because they adjoined the North and because the con- 
ditions of slave cultivation were less favorable than they 
were farther South, hesitated on the brink of secession. In 
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri the Union 
sentiment was so strong that, re-enforced by Union troops, 
it kept those States from seceding, while Virginia went with 
the Southern Confederacy only when the resort to arms 
came, giving as her reason for seceding that States were 
sovereign, and that she could not sit idly by and see sister 
States coerced, and much less assist in their coercion. Nor 
is this all : numbers of men in most or all of the seceding 
States adhered to the Union. These were nearly all found 
in districts where slavery had a feeble hold of the industrial 
system, and accordingly where the conditions of slave cul- 
tivation were not well developed. The Virginians west of 
the mountains refused to follow the Old Dominion, and 
formed a new State loyal to the Union. Moreover, while 
the Unionists of the Appalachian Mountain system below 
the Virginia line may not have been in a majority, they 



310 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

nevertheless furnished many regiments of excellent troops 
to the National cause. On the other hand, we never read of 
similar enlistments in tide- water Virginia or the "black 
belt" of South Carolina, save of negroes. Besides the at- 
tachment of the cereal farmer of the mountain regions to 
the Union, he had nothing in common with the plantation 
and plantation life, but rather felt for them an invincible 
repugnance. In fact, the tendency to division in Virginia, 
where perhaps the two conditions were more plainly marked 
than in any other State, antedated the war. Speaking of 
Kentucky at the opening of the struggle, Professor Shaler 
puts forward a view with which this branch of the subject 
may well be dismissed : 

When in 1861 it was to be determined whether Kentucky should 
go with the South or North, the question turned in the main on 
the occupations of the population. Where the soils were rich the 
plantation system was possible, the slave element was large, and in 
general the voice of the people was for union with the South. Where 
the soils were thin the people had no interest in slavery, for they 
owned no negroes. Old frictions with the slave-holding portions of 
the State existed, and consequently the people of this sterile land 
were generally devoted to the Union. A soil map of Kentucky 
would in a rude way serve as a chart of the politics of the people in 
this crisis in the nation's history. If Kentucky possessed a soil al- 
together derived from limestone there is no question but that it 
would have cast in its lot with the South. 

Only one or two further facts require to be mentioned. 
At the South, manufactures barely existed, while commerce 
and agriculture, as compared with the North, were greatly 
restricted. Slavery served to discredit all kinds of produc- 
tive labor. The first result of these causes was that indus- 
try and trade were far less attractive than at the North, and 
men of character and standing were accordingly thrown 
back upon the professions or a life of leisure. To such a 
life also the climate somewhat invited. The second result 
was the enhanced attention paid to law and politics — to 
which also the political necessities of slavery invited — and 



THE SLAVE POWER. 31 1 

to military and other similar exercises. The political and 
military virtues were well developed. At the North, on the 
other hand, while law and politics were by no means neg- 
lected, society took on an industrial and commercial cast 
beyond anything elsewhere known. The genius of the peo- 
ple was pacific. Not only Southerners, but also foreigners, 
often reproached the people of the North for their devotion 
to money-making. If the military virtues were not despised, 
they were little cultivated. These factors affected the war 
in two ways : in its early stages, and to some extent through- 
out, the South enjoyed a certain advantage arising from its 
military qualities ; but in the end the superior population 
and material resources that freedom had fostered won the 
battle. 

At the close a note that has already been sounded may 
again be struck. History is not an exact science. Phys- 
ical causes alone do not control the life of man. Individu- 
alities, as Carlyle calls them — free wills — not to speak of haz- 
ard or accident, make definite prediction of the future im- 
possible. The statesmen of the Eevolution did not foresee 
the future course of slavery ; the statesmen of 1850 did not 
anticipate its final catastrophe. There is the more reason 
for repeating this note here because no chapter in our his- 
tory more strongly tends to establish the doctrine of uni- 
versal physical causation than the chapter relating to slavery. 
But even here the argument fails. It required a statute to 
put an end to the institution in all the old States, and in 
New York that statute did not come until 1817. One half 
each of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio was quite as well adapted 
to slave labor as one half of Missouri ; and it would un- 
doubtedly have established itself in all those States had it 
not been for the ordinance of 1787. As it was, the prohibi- 
tion was maintaiued with r much difficulty. If Mr. Clay's 
emancipation plan had been adopted by Kentucky early in 
the century — not a violent thing to suppose — there is little 
reason to think that the action would have been afterward 
22 



312 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

reversed. Even at the last there was a considerable num- 
ber of men at the South who did not accept the doctrines 
of their section, while at the North the champions or the 
apologists of the Slave Power were a multitude. 

Again, the action of great political parties can not be posi- 
tively predicted, even within the limits of their traditions 
and platforms. Responding to impulses imparted to them 
by their leaders, swerved by the pressure of particular situa- 
tions, or overzealous for immediate advantage, they all tend 
more or less to play fast and loose with their principles. 
With the exception of that lull in political activity follow- 
ing the War of 1812, called the Era of Good Feeling, there 
has been a Strict-construction party and a Loose-construc- 
tion party in the United States from the organization of the 
Government, the Democratic-Republicans and the Demo- 
crats forming the one line of succession, the Federalists, the 
Whigs, and the Republicans the other line.* But what in- 
consistencies do we not find on both sides ! Following 1801 
Mr. Jefferson and his opponents seemed to change places. 
The Slave Power, while adhering to States rights and de- 
veloping within its bosom the dogma of secession, never 
scrupled to use the power of the National Government to 
promote its interests. And finally the Republicans, while 
emphasizing National principles in the strongest manner, 
have sometimes been found upon ground that more proper- 
ly belonged to the Democrats. 

Still we must not press such facts as the foregoing to the 
extent of denying the existence of general causes or of dis- 
crediting history as a guide in practical affairs. There is a 
moral order : similar causes produce similar effects. Trees 

* " This question of a strict or a loose construction of the Constitution 
has always been at the root of legitimate national party differences in the 
United States. All other pretended distinctions have been either local and 
temporary or selfish and misleading, and the general acceptance of any 
such party difference would mark an unfortunate decline in the political 
intelligence of the people." — Johnston: Political History of the United 
States, Introduction. 



THE SLAVE POWER. 313 

bring forth fruit after their kind ; men do not gather grapes 
of thorns, or figs of thistles. The great source of difficulty 
is that moral problems are very likely to be complex and so 
contused. Man and Nature together make history ; and 
man's powers of prevision and of lordship, although limited, 
are the more important factors in the product. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

TEACHING CIVICS. 

References. — Of literature dealing with the academical side of 
the subject, there is an abundance. A few titles are given without 
distinguishing between general treatises and text-books. Story: 
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (fourth edi- 
tion, edited by Cooley) ; Cooley : A Treatise on the Constitutional 
Limitations which rest upon the Legislative Power of the States of 
the American Union (sixth edition, edited by Angell) ; the General 
Principles of Constitutional Law in the United States of America ; 
Bryce : The American Commonwealth ; Andrews : A Manual of the 
Constitution of the United States ; Desty : The Constitution of the 
United States, with Notes ; Lalor : Cyclopaedia of Political Science, 
etc.; Wilson: Congressional Government, The State, Elements of 
Historical and Practical Politics; Fiske: Civil Government in the 
United States considered with Some Reference to its Origins ; Hitch- 
cock : American State Constitutions, a Study of their Growth ; 
Ford: The American Citizen's Manual; O'Neill : The American 
Electoral System ; Macy : Our Government : How it Grew, what it 
does, and how it does it ; Nordhoff : Politics for Young Americans ; 
Mowry : Elements of Civil Government, Local, State, and National ; 
Hinsdale : The American Government, State and National (the au- 
thor has taken particular pains to discriminate the National and 
the State sides of our dual system, and has given unusual space to 
the State governments) ; Jamison : The Constitutional Convention. 

Of pedagogical literature relating to the subject, there is very 
little. Compayre: Lectures on Practical Pedagogy (Morals and 
Civic Instruction) ; Spencer : Education (I, What Knowledge is of 
most Worth!); Crehore : Education, vol. vii (1887), p. 264 (The 
Teaching of Civics in Schools), p. 456 (Foundation Principles of 
Government), p. 547 (A Primary Study in Government) ; Vose : id., 



TEACHING CIVICS. 315 

vol. vii, pp. 531, 617 (Methods of Instruction in Civics) ; MacDonald : 
The Academy, vol. v (1890), p. 373 (Teaching Civics) ; Bryce : The 
Contemporary Beview, July, 1893, p. 14 (The Teaching of Civic 
Duty ; an admirable article, written from the English point of view, 
but of universal utility). 

For a decade and more increasing attention has been 
paid in our schools to teaching the branch of study called 
Civics or Civil Government. The aim has been to teach 
certain facts and principles relating to government in gen- 
eral, and to our own Government in particular, in such a 
manner as to enlarge the intelligence of the pupils, and to 
inspire them with the spirit of civic duty and of patriotism. 
The tendency is a healthy one. Civics is closely affiliated 
with history ; it is emphatically an historical study. On the 
one hand a knowledge of political science is necessary to the 
successful pursuit of history; on the other, history is the 
torch that illuminates political science. Indeed, the two 
studies are so closely related that they can be carried on 
together with hardly more expenditure of time and effort 
than either one alone — that is, if really valuable work is 
done. In the elementary and the high school the two sub- 
jects are commonly taught by the same teacher. These 
facts are a sufficient reason for closing this book with a 
chapter on Teachiog Civics. 

In previous chapters some remarks were made upon the 
value to historians of a practical knowledge of public affairs. 
Mr. John Morley has illustrated this thought by some ex- 
tremely interesting examples. 

It would perhaps not be too bold to lay down this proposition : 
that no good social history has ever been written by a man who has 
not either himself taken a more or less active part in public affairs, 
or else been an habitual intimate of persons who were taking such a 
part on a considerable scale. Everybody knows what Gibbon said 
about the advantage to the historian of the Roman Empire of having 
been a member of the English Parliament and a captain in the Hamp- 
shire grenadiers. Thucydides commanded an Athenian squadron, 
and Tacitus filled the offices of praetor and consul. Xenophon, Po- 



316 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTOKY. 

lybius, and Sallust were all men of affairs and public adventure. 
Guicciardini was an ambassador, a ruler, and the counselor of rulers ; 
and Machiavel was all these things and more. Voltaire was the 
keen-eyed friend of the greatest princes and statesmen of his time, 
and was more than once engaged in diplomatic transactions. Rob- 
ertson was a powerful party chief in the Assembly of the Scotch 
Church. Grote and Macaulay were active members of Parliament, 
and Hallam and Milman were confidential members of circles where 
affairs of state were the staple of daily discussion among the men 
who were responsible for conducting them to successful issues. 
Guizot was a prime minister, Finlay was a farmer of the Greek 
revenue. The most learned of contemporary English historians a 
few years ago contested a county, and is habitually inspired in his 
researches into the past by his interest in the politics of the present. 
The German historians, whose gifts in reconstructing thV past are 
so valuable and so singular, have for the most part been as actively 
interested in the public movements of to-day as in those of any cen- 
tury before or since the Christian era. Niebuhr held more than one 
political post of dignity and importance ; and of historical writers 
in our time, one has sat in several Prussian parliaments ; another, 
once the tutor of a Prussian prince, has lived in the atmosphere of 
high politics ; while all the best of them have taken their share in 
the preparation of the political spirit and ideas that have restored 
Germany to all the fullness and exaltation of national life.* 

These examples point directly to the first fact that should 
be borne in mind in respect to political education: it always 
begins with public affairs, and never with books or formal 
teaching. Some first-hand practical knowledge is as essential 
in civics as some first-hand natural knowledge is in geogra- 
phy. The examples point also, though less directly, to a sec- 
ond fact that is hardly less important : school study of the 
subject should begin with facts and not with definitions. The 
simple concrete elements of civil government are not unlike 
the similar elements of family and school government, and 
they are acquired quite as easily in their proper time. On 
the other hand, the fundamental terms of political science are 

* Critical Miscellanies, second series, pp. 2, 3. 



TEACHING CIVICS. 317 

abstract, and the definitions of some of them are disputed. 
Accordingly, to give as first lessons definitions and discus- 
sions of nation, state, sovereignty, and the like would be the 
extreme of folly. Nor can anything better be said of the 
National and States rights theories of our own Government. 

Some very simple lessons in civics may be given from 
the very beginning of school life ; they should, be brought 
in incidentally in connection with geography and history, 
should be oral in form, and should relate to matters proxi- 
mate to the daily life of children ; formal instruction upon 
the subject should not be deferred beyond the eighth year 
in school. By that time the boy, if really intelligent, by 
observation, by hearing conversation, and by reading the 
newspapers, has accumulated a store of political facts and 
ideas that will be of the greatest service to him. His facts 
are concrete facts, relating to local government, to State 
government, and to the National Government. He has 
also elaborated or received some political ideas and theories 
which will probably stand in need of future correction. 
Back of this knowledge is the somewhat similar life of the 
home and school, for the boy's first king is his father, his 
first queen his mother, and his first law and authority those 
that his father and mother have taught him. Taking the 
boy where he finds him, the teacher must seek to enlarge his 
range of facts, to clarify his ideas, to give system and body 
to his knowledge, and progressively lead him to comprehend 
the nature and functions of the government and of the state 
and his relations to them. Nowhere is it more important 
to remember that a child of fourteen is not a philosopher ; 
nowhere more indispensable to avoid nice criticisms and ab- 
stract views ; nowhere more important to keep in close and 
constant touch with reality. What shall the method be ? 

Before answering this question directly it will be well to 
state briefly the reasons why we teach civics at all. First, 
the discipline and the culture derived therefrom are the 
same that have been claimed for history in the first chapter 
of this work : the science demands observation and reflec- 



318 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

tion in relation to a very important class of facts, the affairs 
of government, the activities of the state. But the great 
reason for teaching the subject in the elementary and high 
schools is its practical uses ; the pupil needs the informa- 
tion, the guidance, and the civic spirit that it affords. But 
that the study may accomplish these ends we must begin at 
home and not abroad. A second reason impels us to the 
same conclusion, viz., the pedagogical law relative to pro- 
ceeding from the known to the unknown. 

Our fundamental question is still left unanswered. No- 
where is there a greater distribution of political powers than 
in our own country, nowhere a greater variety of govern- 
ments. We have National and State governments, county, 
city, and town governments, not to speak of still smaller 
jurisdictions. With which of these shall we begin, and 
how shall we proceed ? Shall we begin with the nation 
and proceed analytically ? Or shall we begin with the local 
elements and proceed synthetically ? With advanced pupils 
it is no doubt better to begin with the grand whole ; but 
with elementary scholars it is better to begin at home, at 
the center, as in the case of geography, and to work out- 
ward. This is both pedagogical and practical ; pedagogical, 
because the child's first political information and training 
relate to his environment ; practical, because his environ- 
ment concerns him above all other matters. In strictest 
sense there is no room for choice ; we get our first social ex- 
perience in the family and the school, and our first political 
experience in the meeting of the town council, in the court 
of the village magistrate, and on election day. Still, it 
must be said that when a boy is old enough to take up an 
elementary schoolbook on civics he has generally acquired 
much of this primary instruction and is also familiar with 
facts of broader scope. 

Perhaps no government can be named that presents to 
the student, whether child or adult, greater difficulties than 
our own. This is owing to that very distribution of powers 
just mentioned. "The simplest governments are despotic 



TEACHING CIVICS. 319 

ones," Mr. Webster once said ; " the next simplest, limited 
monarchies ; but all republics, all governments of law, must 
impose numerous limitations and qualificatioDs of authority, 
and give many positive and many qualified rights." But 
this is not all ; greater than the complexity that arises from 
our institutions as republican is the complexity that grows 
out of their double character. The course of history be- 
tween 1607 and 1789 made our Government federal. Before 
independence it was the colony on the one part and the 
Crown and Parliament on the other ; since independence it 
is the State and the Union. What the Revolution did was, 
first to make the colonies free and independent States, and, 
second, to bind them together in one federal state. Our 
Government is not unitary, like England or France, but 
dual, composed of States that, in some respects, are inde- 
pendent and sovereign, and of a Union that within its own 
sphere is supreme and paramount. Every American citizen 
residing in a State is subject to two jurisdictions, or, as 
Professor Bryce has put it, he has two loyalties and two 
patriotisms. Our Constitution is peculiar. As a distin- 
guished writer states the case : " The Constitution of the 
United States is a part of the Constitution of each State, 
whether referred to in it or not, and the Constitutions of 
all the States form a part of the Constitution of the United 
States. An aggregation of all these constitutional instru- 
ments would be precisely the same in principle as a single 
constitution, which, framed by the people of the Union, 
should define the powers of the General Government, and 
then by specific provisions erect the separate governments 
of the States, with all their existing attributions and limita- 
tions of power." No person can make anything of our 
political history or of our institutions who does not firmly 
seize these fundamental facts. 

Which of the two sides of this system shall the elemen- 
tary pupil first attack ? Evidently the State, using the term 
State in a sense that includes all Jocal authorities. At this 
point a serious mistake has been made in the past. This 



320 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

mistake is well illustrated by most of the text-books formerly 
used, and by many of those still used. Apparently the 
authors of these books have thought it necessary to exclude 
mainly the State or the Nation in the interest of simplicity, 
and then have thrown out the State as the less imposing of 
the two. Still President Garfield stated the exact truth 
when he said : 

It will not be denied that the State government touches the 
citizen and his interests twenty times where the National Govern- 
ment touches him once. For the peace of our streets and the 
health of our cities ; for the administration of justice in nearly all 
that relates to the security of person and property and the punish- 
ment of crime ; for the education of our children and the care of 
unfortunate and dependent citizens ; for the collection and assess- 
ments of much the larger portion of our direct taxes, and for the 
proper expenditure of the same ; for all this, and much more, we 
depend upon the honesty and wisdom of our General Assembly [at 
Columbus, Ohio], and not upon the Congress at Washington. 

Mr. Woodrow Wilson, comparing our system with that 
of England, says that the twelve greatest subjects that have 
occupied the public mind of the latter country in the present 
century are Catholic emancipation, parliamentary reform, 
the abolition of slavery, the amendment of the poor laws, 
the reform of municipal corporations, the repeal of the corn 
laws, the admission of the Jews to Parliament, the disestab- 
lishment of the Irish Church, the alteration of the Irish 
land laws, the establishment of national education, the in- 
troduction of the ballot, and the reform of the criminal law. 
All of these subjects, except the corn laws and the abolition 
of slavery, under our system would have been brought, so 
far as they could be dealt with at all, under the exclusive 
jurisdiction of the State. 

The study of a government may be brought under two 
general heads : its organization and its powers ; its frame- 
work or mechanism, and what it may do. Under the first 
head our governments, State and National, conform to the 
same model. They both have three branches, legislative, 



TEACHING CIVICS. 321 

executive, and judicial. The legislatures are all bicameral, 
composed of two houses. The executive branches present 
hierarchies of officers, extending in the one line from the 
constable and policeman up to the Governor of the State, 
and in the other from the marshal and his deputy up to the 
President of the United States. The respective judiciaries 
are systems of courts reaching from the justice's or mayor's 
court up to the State Supreme Court or Court of Appeals, 
and from the commissioner's court up to the Supreme 
Court of the United States. The two governments as ma- 
chines do not present to the pupil very great difficulties. 
Such difficulties as do arise are likely to grow out of the 
elections and appointments of officers. Here, however, he 
deals with matters of fact that are not very intricate unless 
he goes into too much detail. For example, the National 
Constitution provides that each House of Congress shall be 
the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its 
own members (Art. I, sec. 5, clause 1), and a similar pro- 
vision will be found in every State constitution. It would 
not be advisable, even in a high school, to describe minutely 
the methods by which Congress or a legislature exercises 
this power ; it suffices to teach that every legislative house, 
like every other deliberative assembly, has such power. 

The main sources of difficulty lie in the other field. The 
life and activities of an organism present more and more 
difficult problems than its skeleton or anatomy. Here it is, 
too, that we run at once upon the line separating National 
powers and functions from State powers and functions, 
along which hard questions are thickly strewed. It is 
scarcely necessary to remark that it is very desirable that 
every citizen should know wherein he is subject to the one 
jurisdiction and wherein to the other. 

Here it will be found helpful to remember that the States, 
as political societies, are older than the Union, and that the 
National Government is a government of delegated powers. 
Article X of Amendments to the Constitution expressly de- 
clares that the powers which are not delegated to the Nation 



322 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

or are not prohibited to the States are reserved to the States 
or to the people, which means that the State or the people 
may exercise such powers if they see fit. In dealing- with 
this question, the convention that framed the Constitution 
inquired what powers were really national, and so necessary 
to the common defense and common welfare, and what were 
not ; the first they undertook to delegate to the National 
Government, leaving all others to the States, save where 
they saw reason for prohibiting their exercise. But it will 
by no means suffice merely to state this general rule ; the 
instructor must descend to particulars, or rather begin with 
particulars and end with the rule. 

The National Government is a government of laws, and 
the teacher can not do better than to ask on what subjects 
Congress can legislate. The general answer to this ques- 
tion is found in Art. I, sec. 8, of the Constitution. It is 
very true that Congress exercises some powers that are not 
here enumerated ; at the same time it may be said that the 
springs of National power must be sought in this section. 
Were it cut out of the document, our whole political system 
as it now exists would tumble into ruins. Too much pains 
can hardly be taken to make the nature and the extent of 
these legislative powers clear to the pupil. This is far more 
important than to discuss many questions about the frame- 
work of the Government or the jurisdiction of the courts. 
The section referred to is here quoted in extenso ; following 
it, two or three provisions will be considered in detail. 

Section 8. — The Congress shall have power to lay and collect 
taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for 
the common defense and general welfare of the United States ; but 
all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the 
United States. 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States. 

To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the sev- 
eral States and with the Indian tribes. 

To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws 
on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States. 



TEACHING CIVICS. 323 

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, 
and fix the standard of weights and measures. 

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities 
and current coin of the United States. 

To establish post offices and post roads. 

To promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing 
for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to 
their respective writings and discoveries. 

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court. 

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high 
seas, and offenses against the law of nations. 

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make 
rules concerning captures on land and water. 

To raise and support armies ; but no appropriation of money to 
that use shall be for a longer term than two years. 

To provide and maintain a navy. 

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and 
naval forces. 

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, 
and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the 
service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the 
appointment of the officers and the authority of training the militia 
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress. 

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such 
district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may by cession of par- 
ticular States and the acceptance of Congress become the seat of the 
Government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over 
all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State 
in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, 
arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings. And 

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carry- 
ing into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested 
by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in 
any department or officer thereof. 

Revenue is the motive force of government. In England 
the throne is the fountain of honor, but the treasury is the 
seat of power. Revenue means taxes, and taxes, since they 



324 H0W T0 STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

touch everybody sooner or later, are of universal interest. 
So central is the subject of revenue and expenditure, that a 
distinguished statesman already quoted was accustomed to 
say that the person who could track every dollar in the 
Treasury to its source, and then follow it to its destination, 
would be a master of our whole system. We may here 
bring together all the provisions of the Constitution in re- 
spect to National taxation. 

" The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, 
duties, imposts, and excises,' 1 etc. (Art. I, sec. 8, clause 1). 

"Representative and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several States which may be included within this 
Union according to their respective numbers " (Art. I, sec. 2, 
clause 3). 

" No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless iu 
proportion to the census or enumeration" (Art. I, sec. 9» 
clause 4). 

" No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from 
any State " (Art. I, sec. 9, clause 5). 

To explain these provisions the teacher must be able to 
think clearly, and must have at hand a store of facts for 
illustrating the points that will arise. Tax is a general 
term, meaning a regular pecuniary charge that a govern- 
ment makes upon the people for its own support. It in- 
cludes duties, imposts, and excises. The Constitution recog- 
nizes two kinds of taxes. 

First, direct taxes, which, as denned by the Supreme 
Court, consist exclusively of capitation or poll taxes, and taxes 
laid upon land, both of which must be divided among the 
States according to their representative population. While 
the power of Congress to levy such taxes is unlimited, save 
in respect to population, they cut a small figure in our fiscal 
history, having been levied for but five different years : 1798, 
1813, 1815, 1816, 1861. The several acts have declared the 
amount to be raised, ranging from $2,000,000 in 1798 to 
$20,000,000 in 1861 ; have apportioned these amounts among 
the States according to the prescribed rule ; have defined the 



TEACHING CIVICS. 325 

property on which the amounts so apportioned should be 
assessed, and provided for assessors to levy and for collectors 
to collect the tax. The early acts put the taxes on slaves 
and land; the act of 1861 on land alone. 

Second, the Constitution seems to regard all other taxes 
as indirect, but does not so call them. They are styled duties, 
imposts, and excises. It is impossible closely to distinguish 
these terms. Duties are customs levied on imported goods ; 
imposts are sometimes duties or customs, but commonly the 
word is used in a broader sense as synonymous with tax ; 
excises are internal taxes, such as the present taxes on 
whisky, malt liquors, and tobacco. The word excise does 
not occur in our laws, internal taxes and internal revenue 
having taken its place. To distinguish between direct and 
indirect taxes has given rise to some litigation. The Su- 
preme Court has decided that taxes on carriages, on incomes, 
and on bank-note circulation are not direct taxes but ex- 
cises. 

Such is the compass of the National taxing power. All 
the taxes that Congress has levied since the direct tax of 
1861 are divisible into two classes: customs and internal 
taxes. The first are collected by customs officers called 
collectors of the port, the second by collectors of internal 
revenue. The first are all paid in the first instance by im- 
porters of dutiable goods, the second at the present time by 
the manufacturers of whisky, malt liquors, and tobacco. To 
avoid confusion, the teacher must point out that this use of 
direct and indirect tax differs from the use of the political 
economists. The economists call a tax direct when it is 
really paid by the person on whom it is assessed, as the 
owner of a farm ; indirect, when it is added to the price of 
goods and is passed along by the importer or manufacturer 
to the retailer for the consumer to pay. 

A few words in relation to the State will suffice. Only 
two provisions relating to the subject of taxation are found 
in the National Constitution. 

u No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay 



326 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what 
may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection 
laws " (Art. I, sec. 10, clause 2). 

'* No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay 
any duty of tonnage " (Art. 1, sec. 10, clause 3). 

These are the only restrictions that the Nation has laid 
upon the State's taxing powers ; and outside of them the 
State regulates the matter for itself in its constitution and 
laws. As a consequence, the taxing powers of Congress and 
of the State legislature to a great extent coincide or overlap. 
The State may tax whisky, beer, and tobacco, for example, if 
it pleases ; but there has been a strong tendency on the part 
of both jurisdictions to avoid double taxation as far as pos- 
sible, lest property and industry be unduly burdened. The 
teacher will not find it superfluous to point out when and 
where and by whom State taxes are collected, at least in the 
State where his pupils reside ; for persons who consider 
themselves intelligent can be found in every community 
who suppose that the taxes paid to the town or county 
treasurer or tax collector go in whole or in part to support 
the Government at Washington. 

Particular attention should be drawn to the powers with 
which the two governments are clothed, enabling them to 
execute their respective functions. Those of the Nation are 
of the amplest sort. At no point is it dependent upon the 
State, in which respect it differs wholly from the Conti- 
nental Congress and the Congress under the Articles of 
Confederation. If its operations are interfered with in any 
manner it acts through both its executive and its judicial 
branch. What is more, it has at its command, or can 
create, all the physical force that is required to meet any 
emergency that may arise. Witness clauses 10-16, Article I, 
section 8, of the Constitution, quoted abpve. If the civil of- 
ficers are unable to enforce the laws, the President, as com- 
mander in chief, can employ the army and navy, and even the 
State militias, for that purpose (Art. II, sec. 2, clause 1). The 
President is sworn to execute his office, and to the best of 



TEACHING CIVICS. 327 

his ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of 
the United States (Art. II, sec. 1, clause 8). What the Presi- 
dent can do in this direction, acting under the Constitution 
and laws, President Lincoln showed in the Civil War. 

The State also is fully armed with power to do its part 
of the work of government. It acts through its executive 
and judicial departments, and if its civil officers prove in- 
competent to execute the laws, the Governor, as commander 
in chief, must call out the State militia. Nor is this all : 
the State may invoke the power of the Union, if necessary. 
Here it should be observed that the State is shorn of many 
powers that belong to a nation. For example, we read in 
the Constitution : u No State shall, without the consent of 
the Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships 
of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or com- 
pact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage 
in war, unless invaded, or in such imminent danger as will 
not admit of delay " (Art. I, sec. 10, clause 3). The reasons 
for these prohibitions lie upon the surface. If the States 
could maintain armies and navies at all times, could enter 
into treaties and compacts with one another and with 
foreign nations, and engage in war at their own discretion, 
the Union would speedily fall to pieces. It was necessary 
to prohibit these powers to the State, and to delegate them 
to the United States for the sake of the common defense and 
of the general welfare. But to compensate the State for the 
denial of the power of peace and war, certain obligations were 
laid upon the United States. "The United States shall 
guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of 
government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, 
and, on application of the legislature, or of the executive 
(when the legislature can not be convened), against domes- 
tic violence" (Art. IV, sec. 4). 

The suppression of domestic violence and the mainte- 
nance of domestic order falls to the duty of the State ; but if 
for any reason the State is unable to perform this duty, the 
United States are pledged to come to its rescue. In such a 
23 



328 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

case the Legislature, or the Governor, as the case may be, 
calls upon the President for assistance, and it then becomes 
the President's duty, provided he deems the emergency suf- 
ficient, to employ the army and navy, and even the State 
militias, to protect the menaced member of the Union. In 
the case of foreign invasion, the President need not wait on 
the action of the State authority, for such an invasion of a 
State is an invasion of the Union itself. 

In one case the Nation may deal with domestic violence 
directly. If such violence is directed against itself, or if it 
interferes with the operations of the National Government, 
then the President can interpose at once, so far as its own 
protection renders this necessary. The criterion in such 
cases is not the character of the acts performed or the per- 
sons who perform them, but the authority that is interfered 
with. Reference to a single branch of the National service 
will make this plain. 

Acting under the power to establish post offices and post 
roads, Congress has created the vast postal system that covers 
the whole Union. It is that branch of the Government 
which comes into practical relation with the largest number 
of people. More than this, its operations are so familiar 
that in teaching civics it furnishes the best possible approach 
to the National jurisdiction. This service is under the pro- 
tection of the United States throughout all its operations. 
From the moment that a letter is deposited in a Government 
mail box on the street until it is delivered it is in the custody 
of the United States. An assault upon the letter carrier go- 
ing his rounds, or upon the postmaster in the discharge of 
his duty, is an attack upon the General Government ; but 
before the letter is deposited, or after it is delivered, the 
General Government is in no way responsible for it. To 
abstract letters from the postal mail box is an infraction of 
the National law; to abstract letters from a citizen's own 
private box nailed up beside his door is an infraction of 
State law. Again, the National authority is in duty bound 
to protect by armed force, if necessary, a mail train in its 



TEACHING CIVICS. 329 

passage across the country ; but it is not in duty bound to 
protect a passenger train that runs a mile ahead or a mile 
behind unless it has been duly called upon to do so. Still, 
if a railroad has been placed in the hands of a receiver 
by a United States court, the United States must protect the 
road. Still another case may be supposed. A village post 
office is kept in a store. Two men break into this store at 
the same time ; one removes letters and money from the 
post office, the other removes bags of coffee and money from 
the store ; both have robbed the same man, and yet one has 
robbed the postmaster and the other the merchant, the one 
committed a National offense and the other a State offense. 
Verily, it is not strange that foreigners should find it diffi- 
cult to understand our Government, and that many of our 
own countrymen shall be confused. 

Undoubtedly the most difficult branch of our government 
both to understand and to teach is the judiciary. But it is 
not its organization that causes the trouble so much as its 
powers and functions. The operations of courts of law 
come under the common observation, particularly of chil- 
dren, much less than the operations of the political branches, 
the executive and the legislative. Moreover, these opera- 
tions are often intricate and confusing, springing out of 
technical rules that few besides lawyers understand. Here 
is the source of much of the law's delay. Now pupils in 
schools are not. and can not be made, lawyers, and it is 
mere waste of effort to multiply details in teaching this 
branch of our subject. An outline somewhat like the fol- 
lowing may be presented : 

I. Both the Nation and the States have their systems of 
courts created by their constitutions and laws. The courts 
of different States differ in many minor points of organiza- 
tion and function and in name. Generally speaking, a 
State system is uniform throughout the State, as the Federal 
courts are throughout the Union. It is desirable that the 
pupil be taught the names and organization of the National 
courts, and of the courts of his own State. 



330 MOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

II. The business of a court is to decide cases, or what are 
popularly called lawsuits, that grow out of the legal rela- 
tions of men in society. To do this it must define or de- 
clare the law, and apply it to the pending case. Moreover, 
since our governments are based upon written constitutions 
that define their powers, cases arise involving the conformity 
of laws to the constitutions. Such are called constitutional 
cases, and the courts of final resort, or the higher courts, are 
authorized to pass upon the laws authoritatively, declaring 
whether they are or are not constitutional. When a law is 
pronounced unconstitutional it is null, void, and no law. 

III. By the jurisdiction of a court is meant its power to 
try and pass upon cases and to administer remedies. The 
meaning of original, appellate, concurrent, and final juris- 
diction should be clearly taught. Again, a general account 
should be given of the jurisdiction of the several courts, or 
at least of those that are in closest contact with the people. 
As the larger part of the judicial business done in any State 
is done by the State courts, these courts should receive the 
greater attention. For a boy to know what is done in the 
court of the village magistrate or of the county in which he 
lives is more important than the same knowledge relating to 
the Supreme Court at Washington. 

IV. In the main the jurisdiction of the State courts is 
separate from and independent of the National courts, and 
vice versa, but there are some exceptions. The following 
are the principal ones : 

1. The judicial power of the United States extends to 
controversies between citizens of different States, and be- 
tween citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants 
of different States (Constitution, Art, III, sec. 2, clause 1). 
At the same time the State courts are open to such cases. 
Hence a citizen of New York or Ohio may bring an action 
to collect a debt against a citizen of Michigan or Indiana at 
his option, either in a National court or a Michigan court of 
competent jurisdiction, and either may try the case. 

2. The judicial power of the United States extends to all 



TEACHING CIVICS. 331 

cases that affect or involve the Constitution, the laws, and 
the treaties of the United States (Constitution, Art. Ill, 
sec. 2, clause 1). Hence, any case of this character that 
arises in a State court may be removed from such court to a 
National court by taking certain steps prescribed by law. 
Such a case is said to involve a Federal question — that is, 
the authority of the United States. Acting" under this 
power, the National courts have often declared State laws in 
conflict with the National Constitution. But this is the 
limit of their right to pass upon State laws. Whether the 
laws of a State are in agreement with the State's own con- 
stitution is a question for its courts to decide. It may be 
further observed that State judges themselves, as well as 
State Senators and Representatives, and all executive and 
judicial officers, are bound by the National Constitution, 
laws, and treaties, anything in the constitution and laws of 
their own State to the contrary notwithstanding (Constitu- 
tion, Art. VI, sec. 1, clause 2). The meaning of this is that 
State judges must set aside State laws if they find them in 
conflict with the National authority. 

3. Save in a few instances the Constitution does not ex- 
clude the State courts from the field covered by the National 
judicial power. The subject was left to the discretion of 
Congress. Congress has given the National courts exclusive 
jurisdiction in certain classes of cases, such as in patent 
rights and admiralty, but within certain limits it grants to 
State courts a civil jurisdiction concurrent with that of the 
National courts. This is a permitted and not a vested juris- 
diction, for the Supreme Court has decided that Congress 
can not vest any portion of the judicial power of the 
United States except in courts ordained and established by 
itself. In a large range of legal business, therefore, the 
citizen may appeal to the State or the National courts for 
relief, as he may see fit, the ultimate authority of course 
residing in the latter. Some offenses against National laws 
may be prosecuted in State courts, as offenses against postal 
laws. 



332 HOW TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

How far the teacher should enter into these particu- 
lars, if at all, must depend upon the age and fitness of his 
pupils. The same may be said of many other phases of the 
general subject. In no study are clear and correct ideas 
more important; in none are confused and false ideas more 
harmful. It is often painful to listen to recitations in civics, 
even in high schools, so hazy is the thinking and so inaccu- 
rate are the facts. The criterion by which to determine what 
should be attempted is what can be really done. It is very 
desirable, or rather necessary, to keep on the safe side. Such 
topics as attainder and corruption of blood should be left 
until the pupil grows up to them. 

It has been said above that lessons in civics should begin 
with facts and not with definitions. However, the pupil 
should not be finally left without definitions. Professor 
Bryce observes that we should not be prevented by fear of 
the abstract " from trying to make the pupil understand the 
meaning of such terms as the nation, the state, and the 
law." "You need not trouble yourselves," he goes on to 
say, " to find unimpeachable, logical definitions of these 
terms; that is a task which still employs the learned. What 
is wanted is that he should grasp the idea, first, of a com- 
munity — a community inhabiting a country, united by vari- 
ous ties, organized for mutual protection, mutual help, and 
the attainment of certain common ends; next, of the law, as 
that which regulates and keeps order in this community; 
next, of public officers, great and small, as those whom the 
law sets over us and whose business it is to make us obey the 
law, while they also obey it themselves." A pupil properly 
taught will not leave the elementary school until these 
fundamental ideas are firmly rooted in his mind. 

It has been said, too, that instruction in civics should 
begin at home, and sufficient reasons have been given for 
so saying. But before the pupil has left the high school 
behind he should have paid some attention to the compara- 
tive study of political institutions. Points of agreement 
and of contrast between our own Government and the gov- 



TEACHING CIVICS. 333 

ernments of other countries, as France, Germany, and Eng- 
land, should be taught, care being taken to have it under- 
stood that the first of these countries is a republic, the second 
a federal empire, and the third a so-called limited monarchy. 
Not only would the information thus obtained be valuable, 
but, what is even more important, the faculty and habit of 
comparing political institutions would be stimulated. Nor 
should comparative study be limited to governments that 
now exist; it should also extend into the past, at least to the 
extent of the cardinal political features of Greece and Rome 
in the cases of those pupils who study ancient history. The 
work in civics should always be kept in touch with history 
and geography. Nor is it necessary to postpone a kind of 
comparative study to the high school ; for example, many 
facts relating to the Government of England can be taught, 
and should be taught, in connection with our own early 
history. It is difficult to exaggerate the value of large 
knowledge of the present to the student who is exploring 
the past. 

Along with the study of the Government should go the 
study of the political organizations and the political ma- 
chinery by which it is carried on. The great features of 
the party system that has grown up in the country, with 
its committees, caucuses, and conventions, are of more prac- 
tical importance than many features of the Government it- 
self. The election of a President and Vice-President involves 
these steps : (1) The nomination of candidates by the National 
Conventions; (2) the nomination of State electoral tickets 
by State and district conventions; (3) the appointment, by 
popular election on Tuesday following the first Monday in 
November, of the electors ; (4) the meeting of these electors 
at their respective State capitols, the casting of their ballots, 
and the dispatch of the lists to Washington ; (5) the opening 
and counting of the returns at Washington in the presence 
of the Senate and House of Representatives on the second 
Wednesday in February, and the declaration of the result. 
Here are five steps, the first two of which lie wholly outside 



334 H °W TO STUDY AND TEACH HISTORY. 

the law in the field of voluntary political agency. Our party 
system has made the third of these steps the real presidential 
election, whereas the people in 1789 intended that the fourth 
one should be such election. 

Perhaps it will not be superfluous to remark that this 
chapter is not an attempt to describe the whole compass of 
teaching political science in its substance and methods. It 
is only an attempt to emphasize the value of the study, to 
relate it with history, to state where, as determined by the 
author's own experience as a teacher, the main points of 
difficulty arise in teaching the Government of the United 
States, and to suggest methods for overcoming these diffi- 
culties. 

The leading points that have been made may be sum- 
marized. Instruction in civics, while it has disciplinary 
power, should look mainly to practical or guidance ends ; it 
should begin with concrete facts and not with general defi- 
nitions ; it should first deal with the political facts forming 
the child's own environment and gradually work outward; 
it should therefore at first concern itself more with the 
State element than with the National element of our dual 
system ; the distinction between the framework of govern- 
ment and its powers must be emphasized, due effort being 
made to overcome the difficulties that the second phase of 
the subject presents ; great pains should be taken, by means 
of striking and apt illustrations, to make plain the line 
separating the State authority from the National authority, 
and the important part played by political parties must be 
recognized. 

The highest ends of the study will be defeated in great 
part provided the instruction consists of mere enumeration 
of facts or definition of abstractions. Nor is it sufficient to 
organize the facts and make the definitions real. The study 
should look to patriotism and the civic spirit — that is, to love 
of country and disposition to insist upon the rights and 
perform the duties that spring out of the citizen's relations 



TEACHING CIVICS. 035 

to civil society and the state. The ends of human govern- 
ment are these rights and duties. Dr. Lieber, the distin- 
guished publicist, was accustomed to say, " No right with- 
out its correlative duty, no duty without its correlative 
right." The highest aims of civics, as a branch of educa- 
tion, are the instruction of youth in these ends, and the 
formation of characters that will maintain the one and per- 
form the other. 



INDEX 



Adams, Mr., classifies scheme of in- 
ternal improvements undertaken 
by Congress, 284. 

Administrations, presidential, use- 
fulness of, in classifying historical 
matter, 84. 

Agricultural productions, influence 
of, on history, 33. 

Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 223. 

Alaska, history of, as a territory, 273 ; 
name of, proposed by Mr. Sumner, 
274. 

Alleghanies, the first road through 
the, 279. 

Alliance of France with the Amer- 
ican colonies, 240. 

America, how it was named, 178. 

American ideas in New England, 231. 

Americus Vespucius and the New 
World, 177. 

Analysis of matter in text-book, ad- 
vantage of, 65. 

Anaxagoras on the organization of 
facts, 69. 

Anecdotes, use of, in history, 48. 

Anglia, the ancient name of Eng- 
land, 165. 

Antillia, or the Isle of Seven Cities, 
an imaginary island, 179. 

Antiquities as a source of informa- 
tion, 35 ; knowledge of, indispensa- 
ble to the teacher, 145. 

Appalachian Mountains, highest 
summits of, 195. 

Apparatus, historical, 34. 

Apperception, 11. 

Aragon, permanent] union of, with 
Castile, 163. 

Archaeology as a source of informa- 
tion, 35. 

Area of the United States, with dates 
of acquisition, 276. 



Aristotle on the contrast between 
the repose of Asia and the energy 
of Europe, 128. 

Arnold, Dr., on the duty of study, 17 ; 
defines history, ] 8. 

Arnold, Matthew, on culture, 13. 

Asia as used in history, 154. 

A sia Minor, first appearance of the 
name, 155. 

Association, the laws of, 69. 

Assyria, civilization of, 25 ; archae- 
ological researches in, 35. 

Astoria, Ore., founding of, 271, 272. 

Atlantic slope, average width of, 196. 

Attila, destruction ot towns by, 123. 

Aulus Gellius on the humanities, 13. 

Austria, a confusing name in history, 
161. 

Baccalaos, origin of the name, 180. 

Bacon, Sir Francis, on time, the 
greatest innovator, 107 ; on the 
true office of history, 108. 

Bain's The Art of Study, quotations 
from, 61 ; three fundamental propo- 
sitions laid down in, 63. 

Baltimore, the battle of, 251. 

Bancroft on the issue of 1754, 230. 

Barbarians, renown of the wondrous 
deeds of, 18. 

Battle of Otterburn, ballad of, men- 
tioned, 57. 

Bering discovers the Strait of Be- 
ring, 273. 

Berkeley, Bishop, on the prospect of 
planting arts and learning in 
America, 269. 

Berlin, elementary schools of, 58. 

Bermudas, a part of Virginia, 188. 

Bibliography, general, xvii. 

Biographies of monarchs, light 
thrown on society by, 49. 



338 



INDEX. 



Biography, bearing of, on teaching 
history, 30. 

Bladensburg, battle of, 251. 

Blockade of our water front by the 
English, the, 250. 

Bodin, on the historical influence of 
physical causes, 111. 

Bolingbroke quotes Dionysius, 6. 

Bon Homme Kichard, the battle of, 
with the Serapis, 241. 

Boundaries of the United States, the 
first national, 255. 

Brandywine 2 battle of the, 239. 

Brazil, why it was so called, 179. 

Britain and. England, the distinction 
between, 164. 

British, retreat of, from Philadelphia, 
241 ; capture of Savannah by, 241 ; 
evacuation of New York, Savan- 
nah, and Charleston by, 244. 

Bryce, Professor, on the subject of 
environment, 114; on man in his 
relation to nature, 135; on Dr. 
Freeman's books, 142. 

Buckle and the naturalistic theory, 
112 ; on the growth of civilization, 
118. 

Buena Vista, General Taylor at, 96. 

Burgoyne, General, surrender of, 
238. 

Burke, Edmund, eulogium of, on the 
maritime enterprise and prosperity 
of the States, 241 ; on the discon- 
tents of America in 1775, 293. 

Cairnes, Professor, on the slave pow- 
er, 299. 

Caledonians, in northern Britain, the, 
165. 

Calhoun, Mr., on domestic manufac- 
tures, 289. 

California, campaign in, 96 ; the most 
romantic of American names, 182 ; 
claimed by Spain, 270 ; by Bussia, 
270. 

Calvinistic theology of Scotland, to 
what attributed, 112. 

Canada, origin of name, 183. 

Canal, the first, connecting the West 
and tide water, 201 ; Delaware and 
Hudson, completed, 285 ; Erie, 285. 

Capet, Hugh, skill and policy of, in 
producing modern France, 163. 

Capital, national, locating the, 295. 

Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 6, 24, 86, 
108 ; on subjects for reading, 94. 



Carthaginians, and their continent, 
the, 155. 

Castile ; permanent union of, with 
Aragon, 163. 

Cathedrals, mediaeval, what they ex- 
emplify, 130. 

Cause and effect, or the causal rela- 
tion, 73. 

Central Pacific Eailroad, the, high 
elevation of, 194. 

Central plain of North America, ex- 
tent of, 196. 

Champlain, the father of Canada, 99 ; 
the " Father of New France," 208. 

Charles I's war, 85. 

Charles V, the last monarch crowned 
Eoman emperor, 160. 

Charleston, surrender of, 241 ; evacu- 
ation of, by the British, 244. 

Chart, valueof,in teaching history,78. 

Chester, origin of the name, 171. 

Chevy Chase, ballad of, mentioned, 
57. 

Chicago, the site of, 126. 

China rich in history, 16. 

Christianity, upon what based, 103. 

Chronology, 75, 78, 79, 88. 

Cicero defines history, 5. 

Cincinnati, how it was named, 189. 

Cities, location of, controlled by 
"geographical selection," 120. 

City of Mexico, Scott's campaign 
against, 97. 

Civics, a historical study, 315 ; why 
taught, 317; how taught, 318; its 
practical uses, 318 ; its difficulties, 
318 ; mistakes made in teaching, 
319 ; fundamental ideas of, 332 ; 
the highest aims of, 335. 

Civil government, the teaching of, 
in our schools, 315. 

Civil War, factors affecting the, 311. 

Civilizations of Egypt and Assyria 
contrasted with those of Greece 
and Eome, 25. 

Claims, territorial, made by Congress 
at the Eevolution, 253. 

Clay, Henry, and the contest of 1812, 
247. 

Climate, the influence of, upon man, 
116. 

Climates, the doctrine of, 112. 

Clinton, Sir Henry, succeeds Howe 
in command, 240 ; meets Washing- 
ton in battle at Monmouth Court 
House, 240. 



INDEX. 



339 



Clio, the muse of history, 88. 

" Codfish land," 181. 

Cologne, origin of the name, 171. 

Colonial period, the, 83. 

Colonies, French, of America, 26 ; 
English, 26 ; the Thirteen, 189 ; the 
French and English contrasted, 
214; English, character of the 
people, 217 ; ximerican, alliance 
of, with France, 240; American, 
George III consents to the inde- 
pendence of, 244; commodities of, 
303. 

Columhus, Christopher, expectations 
of, on sailing from Palos, 175; 
name of, in the New World, 178. 

Commerce, influence of, on history, 
33. 

Commodities of the several colonies, 
303. 

Communication, establishment of 
means of, between the several 
parts of the country, 278 ; lines of, 
to connect the Atlantic seaboard 
and the interior of the continent, 
280. 

Compavre, on the universities of the 
Middle Ages, 82. 

Constitutional period, the, 83. 

Continental army, the disbanding 
of, 244. 

Continents, distinctness and unity 
of, 154. 

Contradiction of terms involved by 
the treaty of 1803, 264. 

Cook, Captain, visits coast of Cali- 
fornia, 270. 

Cornwallis, Lord, at Wilmington, 
242 ; takes possession of York- 
town, 243 ; surrenders his army, 
244. 

Cosmographias Introductio, 178. 

Cotton gin, invention of, 304. 

Cotton plant, the, 303; culture of, 
great impulse given to, by remark- 
able inventions in latter part of 
eighteenth century, 303. 

Council for the Indies, the organiza- 
tion of,* 175. 

Court, the business of, 330 ; jurisdic- 
tion of, 330. 

Courts, systems of, of nation and 
states, 329; state, jurisdiction of, 
330. 

Cylinder printing, introduction of, 
for cotton fabrics, 304. 



Dates, how shall they be taught ? 
76 ; not the skeleton* of history, 88. 

Declaration of Independence, what 
it expressed, 234. 

Deduction, 67. 

Delaware and Hudson Canal, com- 
pletion of, 285. 

Delhi, a natural center of commerce, 
121. 

Democratic party takes up the line 
of free trade, 290 ; reorganized by 
General Jackson, 290. 

Demosthenes and the plain of Mara- 
thon, 14. 

De Soto, search of, for gold, 49. 

D'Estaing, Count, arrival of, in 1778 
with French forces, 240. 

Detroit, evacuation of, by the Brit- 
ish, 250. 

Diodorus defines history, 5. 

Dionysius quoted by Bolingbroke, 6. 

Discovery and explorations of the 
French, 211. 

Discovery, the right of, becomes sole 
ground of title, 205. 

Discussions, critical, 39. 

Dissertations as sources of informa- 
tion, 32. 

Dixon, Mr., of Kentucky, on slaverv, 
298. 

Documents, literary, as a source of 
information, 35. 

Drake, Sir Francis, 181, 270. 

Draper, Dr. J. W., and the natural- 
istic theory, 113 ; on the geography 
of Europe, 114. 

Drawing, an instrumental study, 2. 

" Dutch^" a derivative term, 159. 

Dutch traders at New York, 49. 

Duties, protective, after War of 1812, 
288. 

Earth's surface, influences that are 
due to the configuration of, 114. 

Economics, correlation of history 
with, 46. - 

Education, relation of, to all the 
powers of the mind, 15. 

Earypt, civilization of, 25 ; archaeo- 
logical researches in, 35. 

Egyptians, division of time by, 21. 

Electricity, the introduction of, 287. 

Ellis, Dr. George E., on the name 
" Indians," 176. 

Emigration, early Western, 201 ; 
New England, 279. 



340 



INDEX. 



England, and Britain, the distinction 
between, 164; name of, why it 
never took the place of Britain, 
165 ; naval superiority of, 245 ; es- 
tablishes a blockade along our 
ocean rront, 250. 

English character, qualities of, 213. 

English colonies of America, 26. 

English on the Atlantic Plain, 212. 

Environment, its influence on his- 
tory, 114 ; Professor Bryce on, 114 ; 
stress placed on, by historians, 125; 
acts upon man, 127 ; dependence 
of man upon, 135 ; relation of, to 
foreign invasion, 168. 

Epochs of historical subjects, 32. 

Era, the, 78. 

Erie Canal completed, 285. 

Essays as sources of information, 32. 

Ethnology as an aid to study, 36. 

Euripides on the climate of Greece, 
116. 

Eutaw Springs, battle of, 242. 

Explorations, French, 211 ; of Lewis 
and Clarke, 272. 

" Fact lore," 4. 

Facts, objective, 4 ; the choice of, 42 ; 
organization of, 67 ; connection of, 
68 ; historical, principles for or- 
ganization of, 73. 

Farm owner, the, his own director, 
301. 

Federal Convention, the, 45, 94. 

Federal party, the, 291 ; causes of 
downfall of, 292. 

Federalism, what States constituted 
the strength of, 292. 

Flanders, a highway of war, 168. 

Flint on the philosophy of history, 
104. 

Florida, why it was so named, 184; 
ceded to England by Spain, 256 ; 
history of, as a Territory, 262 ; 
Spanish claims to, 260 ; sold in 
1819 by the Pope, 265; annexed 
to Louisiana, 266. 

Fly shuttle, the invention of, 303. 

Forefather's Day, 85. 

Fox, Charles James, as an historian, 
142. 

France, modern, the evolution of, 
163 ; alliance of the American col- 
onies with, 240. 

Francia, the division of, in the nine- 
teenth century, 1 62. 



Franklin, Benjamin, a great char- 
acter in history, 99. 

Freeman, Dr. E. A., and his works, 
xviii; quoted, 20; on historical 
names, 34 ; sense of reality pervad- 
ing books of, 142 ; on failure of 
German writers to understand the 
ancient democracies, 143 ; on the 
distinction between geographical 
and political names, 155. 

Free trade, 288 ; the Democratic 
party takes up the line of, 290. 

French and Indian War, 86 ; 224. 

French, colonies of, in America, 20 ; 
in the Lake and St. Lawrence 
Basin, 208 ; the hostility of the 
Iroquois toward, 209; discovery 
and exploration of the, 211 ; mis- 
sions, 211. 

Froissart distinguishes history from 
chronicle, 103. 

Frontenac, Fort, when built, 222. 

" Gadsden Purchase," the, 268. 

Ganges Valley, fertility of the, 121. 

Garfield, President, on state govern- 
ment, 320. 

Gates, General, the victor of Sara- 
toga, 242. 

Gaul, use of the name, 158. 

Generalization, 73. 

Genius, individual, 130. 

Genius of the age, the, 129. 

Geography, historical, 35 ; physical, 
as an aid to study, 36 ; in its bear- 
ings on history, 153. 

Geological maps, 117. 

Geology as an aid to study, 36. 

George III consents to the inde- 
pendence of the American colonies, 
244. 

German Confederation, the, 160. 

German Empire, the, 161. 

German Kingdom, the, 159. 

Germany, teaching history in, 54; 
the principal political phases of, 
159; Carolingian, 159; of Csesar 
and Tacitus, 159. 

Gettysburg as a field of battle, 93. 

Ghent, the Treaty of, 252. 

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the 
Koman Empire, 8. 

Gladstone describes our territory, 276. 

Goodwin, Professor, on the study of 
Greece alone as a preparation for 
good work, 145. 



INDEX. 



341 



Government, study of, 320 ; state 
and national, 321 ; American com- 
pared with English, 320 ; national, 
its powers, 322 ; judiciary branch 
of, difficulties of teaching, 329. 

Gr'seci and the Romans, 157. 

Gray's discovery of the Columbia 
River, 272. 

Great Lakes, the, 199. 

Greece and the effect of environment 
on historical development, 119 ; a 
curious and instructive name, 156. 

Green, John Richard, early life of, 
at Magdalen Grammar School, 146 ; 
first historical efforts, etc., 147 ; as 
a historian, 139 ; quoted, 23 ; on 
the Duke of Marlborough, 108. 

Greene, General, succeeds General 
Gates in command of the Ameri- 
can forces, 242. 

Grimm's tales, 57. 

Guerrilla warfare, 115. 

Guizot on the value of history, 6 ; 
quoted, 73, 107. 

Gulf of Mexico, the, 198. 

Hamilton, Alexander, propositions of, 
concerning state debts, 293. 

Hamilton, Sir William, quoted on 
organization of facts, 68 ; quoted, 
73. 

Harris, Dr. W. T., on the elementary 
school, 71. 

Harrison, General, occupies Maiden, 
250. : 

Harrison, Governor, the famous 
letter written to, by Washington, 
282. 

Hawthorne on the fortifications of the 
Potomac, 150. 

Hellas, the ancient name of Greece, 
156. 

Hellenes, the ancient name of the 
Greeks, 156. 

Henderson quoted, 40. 

Herbart-Ziller school of pedagogists, 
57. 

Herder, the founder of the philoso- 
phy of history, 104. 

Herodotus of Halicarnassus, re- 
searches of, 18, 19 ; quoted, 119 ; on 
the distinctness and unity of con- 
tinents, 154. 

Hildreth, Mr., on the Republican 
and Democratic parties, 291. 

Historian, main function of the, 109. 



Historical geography, 153, 174. 

Historical sense, development of, 58. 

History, educational value of, 1 ; 
sources of information, 1 ; great 
guidance value of, 5 ; defined by 
Cicero, 5 ; practical value of, 6 ; 
trains the memory, 7 ; "s aluable 
discipline of the thinking facul- 
ties, 8 ; valuable discipline of the 
imagination, 8 ; object of teach- 
ing, 11 ; Muse of, 13 ; furnishes 
motive power, 14 ; field of, 18 ; 
two grand departments of, 18 : the 
story of man, 18 ; military, 19 ; 
ecclesiastical, 19 ; constitutional, 
19 ; text-books of, 28 ; bearing of 
biography on teaching, 30; treatises 
on, 32; regimental, 34; pictorial and 
poetical elements of, 44 ; philosophy 
of, 47 ; a moral knowledge, 47 ; 
romance in, 48 ; poetry in, 48 ; 
anecdote in, 48 ; stories in, 48 ; 
what the teaching of it involves, 
70; logical element in, 73; dy- 
namic, not static, 75 ; the time re- 
lation in, 75 ; an evolution, 82 ; 
cause and effect in, 101 ; the true 
office of, 108 ; physical causes that 
act in, 110 ; spiritual elements of, 
112 ; human causes that act in, 
127 ; not an exact science, 311. 

History of England from the Acces- 
sion of James II referred to, 22. 

Holy Places, 94. 

Holy Roman Empire, importance 
of a thorough knowledge of the, 
160. 

Howe, General, defeat of, at Brandy- 
wine, 239. 

Hudson River, discovery of, 48. 

Hull, invasion of Canada by, 249. 

Human causes that act in history, 
127. 

Humanities, the, 13. 

Hungary, what it consists of, 161. 

Iceland, Professor Bryce on, 117. 

Idealism, 48. 

Ideas and sentiments, 133. 

Illustration, materials for, 151. 

Imagination, faculties of, 45. 

Improvements, internal, interest in, 
283 ; scheme of, undertaken by 
Congress, 284 ; become a political 
question, 287. 

Independence of text-books, 65. 



342 



INDEX. 



Indian names, 186. 

Indians, how they came to be so 
called, 175 ; ignorance of the, con- 
cerning Nature, 102. 

Induction, 68. 

Industrial systems, 50. 

Inhabitants of mountainous regions 
and those of plains and valleys 
contrasted, 166. 

Inscriptions as a source of informa- 
tion, 35. 

Instruction, elementary, 48 ; in his- 
tory, principles that should under- 
lie it, 56. 

Iroquois, the, hostility of, toward the 
French, 209 ; the, in early Amer- 
ican history, 227. 

Italy, extent of, in time of Julius 
Caesar, 157 ; and the Komans, 157. 

Jackson, General, victory of, at New 
Orleans, 252 ; reorganizes the 
Democratic party, 290. 

James, Professor, on physiological 
retentiveness, 71. 

Jefferson, Thomas, on the site of New 
Orleans, 259 ; on slavery, 298. 

Jews, the patriotism of, 15. 

Jones, John Paul, voyage of, 241. 

Judiciary branch of our govern- 
ment, difficulties of teaching, 329. 

Kearney, General S. W., subjugation 
of New Mexico by, 97. 

King George's War, 86. 

King William's War, 85, 221. 

Klemm, Dr. L. E., on excellence of 
historical instruction in a school 
in Ehenish Prussia, 55. 

Knowledge, varieties of, 17 ; princi- 
pal sources of, 27 ; organization of, 
73. 

" Laboratory method," 39. 

Lafayette on the Kevolution, 231 ; 
participates in the siege of York- 
town, 243. 

Lake Champlain, discovery of, 99 ; 
"Lake Champlain in History," 
100; called "the Gate of the 
Country," 200. 

Lake Erie, victory of Perry on, 249. 

La Salle takes possession of Louisi- 
ana, 262. 

Lavisse on the iniluence of nature 
on history, 136. 



Law, constitutional correlation of 
history with, 46. 

Lecky on moral forces, 106 ; on the 
usefulness of history, 107 ; on mili- 
tary or industrial habits, 131 ; on 
men of genius, 132. 

Lectures, courses of, as a means of 
instruction, 61. 

Leuctra, influence of the name, 15. 

Lewis and Clarke, explorations of, 
272. 

Lexington, battle of, 88, 232. 

Lieber, Dr., defines guerrilla, 115. 

Lincoln on the immortality of the 
name of Gettsyburg, 14 ; stories 
told by, 48. 

Literature, general value of, to the 
teacher, 151. 

Livy's History of Eome, division of, 
into decades, 80. 

Locke on the value of history, 6. 

London, Mackinder on the greatness 
of, 123. 

" Lone Star " republic, 267. 

Louisiana purchase, the, 185 ; the 
territory of, 258 ; retroceded to 
France by Spain, 261 ; purchased 
by the United States, 262 ; La 
Salle takes possession of, 262 ; the 
first boundaries of, 263 ; the sec- 
ond, ceded to Spain by France, 
264; and Florida, annexation of, 
266. 

Lowell on New England history, 
214. 

Macaulay on the value of history, 7 ; 
on the use of traveling, 13 ; quoted, 
16 ; on detail in history, 20 ; quoted. 
21 ; as an historian, 22 ; a master 
of historical narrative, 140; on 
Charles James Fox as a historian, 
142; on Sir James Macintosh as 
an historian, 142. 

Mackinder, quoted, 115 ; on material 
civilization, 135. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, as a histo- 
rian, 142. 

Magdeburg centurists, the division 
of history by ? 80. 

Manufactures, influence of, on his- 
tory, 33 ; domestic, Mr. Calhoun 
on, 289. 

Maps, historical, 34 ; geological, 117. 

Marathon, influence of the name, 14, 
15. 



INDEX. 



343 



Marlborough, Duke of, diplomacy 
of, 108. 

Marsh, George P., on physical causes 
that act in history, 113. 

Mason on slavery, 298. 

Materials, selection of, 42. 

Mathematical data, 67. 

Mathematicians' data, 10. 

McMaster, J. B., defines his plan of 
writing history, 23. 

Memoirs, personal value of, 30. 

Memory, faculties of, 45; opera- 
tions of, 69. 

Mental qualities required to teach 
history, 141. 

Meteorology, the influences of, 116. 

Method, topical, 28 ; internal, 81. 

Mexican annexation, first, 267 ; sec- 
ond, 268. 

Mexican War, the, 95. 

Mexico, origin of the name, 183. 

Mexico, establishment of the repub- 
lic of, 267. 

Middle Ages, the, 103. 

Milan, the ancient capital of Italy, 
123, 157. 

Miller, Hugh, on geological history, 
36. 

Milton on the educational value of 
history, 6. 

Mind, activities of the, 17. 

Missions, French, 211. 

Mississippi first called the river of 
the Holy Spirit, 186. 

Missouri Compromise, the, 306. 

Monarchs, biographies of, 49. 

Monographs as sources of informa- 
tion, 32. 

Monroe doctrine, 269, 272. 

Monterey, victory of General Taylor 
at, 96. 

Montesquieu writes The Spirit of the 
Laws, 103 ; and The Spirit of Laws, 
112 ; on human causes that act in 
history, 129. 

Montreal, when founded, 209. 

Monuments as a source of informa- 
tion, 35 ; historical, scarcity of, in 
our country, 37. 

Morley, John, on the educational 
value of history, 7 ; some remarks 
of, to teachers of history, 143 ; on 
the value to historians of a practi- 
cal knowledge of affairs, 315. 

Mosheim, 80. 

Mound builders, the works of, 37. 

24 



Mountains, inhabitants of, and those 
of plains and valleys contrasted, 
166. 

Music, notation of, 2. 

Names, geographical and political, 
difference between, 155 ; the mean- 
ing of, 157 ; geographical, the ori- 
gin and meaning of, 168 ; local, 
records of the past, 169 ; origin and 
meaning of, 172 ; Indian, 186 ; and 
nationalities, relations existing be- 
tween, 190; geographical, influence 
of religious creeds upon, 180 ; Old 
World, 191. 

National capital, locating the, 295. 

Naturalistic theory, 112. 

Navigation, inland, facilities of the 
United States for, 278. 

New England, named by Captain 
John Smith, 188; history, character 
of, 214 ; emigration, 279. 

New France founded by commercial 
companies, 215. 

New Mexico, subjugation of, by Gen- 
eral Kearney, 97. - 

New Orleans, victory of General 
Jackson at, 252 ; the site of, 259 ; 
acquisition of, 264. 

New York, superiority of, as a trade 
mart, 124; Dutch traders at, 49; 
evacuation of, by the British, 244. 

Nile Valley, fertility of the, 119. 

North America, form of, 193 ; western 
side of, 195 ; eastern side of, 195 ; 
central plain of, 196 ; great water 
ways of, 197 ; colonization of, 204 ; 
the struggle between France and 
England in, 219. 

Northern Pacific Eailroad, elevation 
of, 194. 

Nullification, the question of, 289. 

Old Testament, the, 58. 

Old World names, 191. 

Olympiads, the, 21. 

Ontario, Lake, discovery of, 209. 

Oral teaching, advantages and dis- 
advantages' of, 59. 

Oregon, history of, as a Territory, 269 ; 
origin of the name, 270 ; boundaries 
of, fixed by treaties with Spain and 
Eussia, 271 ; not a part of the 
Louisiana purchase, 272. 

Organization essential to real knowl- 
edge, 69. 



344 



INDEX. 



" Original materials," 36. 
Outlines, importance of, 63. 

Pacific Highlands, great elevation 
of, 193. 

Palestine, a highway of war, 168. 

Palo Alto, battle of, 96. 

Papacy and the empire, struggles 
between, 40. 

Paris, Treaty of, 244, 255 ; negotia- 
tions of the United States at, 253. 

Parkman on the ignorance of the 
Indians concerning Nature, 102. 

Parnassus in Greek history, 119. 

Partisan warfare rages in Georgia, 
242. 

Party system, the practical advan- 
tage of, 333. 

Pascal, on the analogy of the race to 
the individual, 103 ; quoted, 108. 

Patriotism, 14, 15. 

Paul Eevere's Eide, ballad of, men- 
tioned, 57. 

Pedagogists, Herbart - Ziller school 
of, 57. 

Penn, William, treaty of, with the 
Indians, 99. 

Perception, the faculties of, 45. 

Period, the historical, 82. 

Perry, Commodore, on Lake Erie, 
249. 

Personality an element of great in- 
terest, 44. 

Philadelphia, retreat of the British 
from, 241. 

Philosophy, political correlation of 
history with, 46. 

Pictures for an historical work, xxii. 

Pilgrim Fathers, 44, 49. 

Pilgrims, landing of, 85. 

Pitt, William, and the proposed con- 
quest of Canada, 228. 

Pittsburg, the first inland manufac- 
turing center, 279. 

Place, or the geographical relation, 
73. 

Platsea, influence of the name, 15. 

Plutarch's Parallel Lives, 9. 

Plymouth Company, the, 188. 

Poetry in history, 48. 

Political parties in 1856, 308; action 
of, 312; inconsistencies of, 312. 

Political science, a knowledge of, 
necessary to pursuit of history, 
315 ; powers, distribution of, in our 
own country, 318. • 



Politics, a great educative power, 1 2 ; 
internal improvements become a 
question of, 287. 

Polybius and the conception of the 
universal, 102. 

Ponce de Leon, search of, for the 
fountain of youth, 49 ; and the dis- 
covery of Florida, 184. 

Postal system, the, 328. 

Potomac, the fortifications of, 150. 

Principles for organization of his- 
torical facts stated, 73. 

Printing cylinder, introduction of, 
for cotton fabrics, 304. 

Protective duties after the War of 
1812, 288. 

Protection, the Whig party takes up 
the line of, 290 ; commerce the first 
great interest to oppose, 290 ; farm- 
ing the last, 290. 

Prussia, the original, 162. 

Puritans and the shores of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, 93. 

Quebec, when founded, 208. 
Queen Anne's War, 86. 
Questions, special, strongly con- 
demned, 64. 
Quiz, the, 65. 

Eailroad, Northern Pacific, Union 
Pacific, Central Pacific, 194; first, 
connecting the West and tide 
water, 20. 

Eansome quoted, 51. 

Eeading an art of acquirement, 2. 

Eeclus referred to, 15 (note). 

Eeferences, 1, 18, 27, 35, 42, 53, 67, 75, 
92, 101, 110, 127, 138, 153, 174, 192, 
204, 219, 231, 245, 253, 277,297,314. 

Eeformation, Protestant, 81. 

Eeligious creeds, influence of, on 
geographical names, 180. 

Eepublicanism, what states consti- 
tuted the strength of, 292. 

Eesaca de la Palma, battle of, 96. 

Eevenue tariff, 288. 

Eevolution, the, what it did, 319. 

Eevolutionary period, the, 83. 

Eio Grande frontier, 96. 

Eiver names, memorials of the earli- 
est races, 171. 

Eoad, the first, through the Allegha- 
nies, 279. 

Eocky Mountains, discovery of, 211. 

Eogers, Professor, on the influence 



INDEX. 



345 



of commerce, manufactures, etc., 
83; on history of domestic poli- 
tics, 33. 

Eomance in history, 48. 

Eoman Empire, the, a great political 
structure, 158. 

Eomans, the original, 158. 

Eome, described by Livy, 121 ; 
founded by shepherds, 121 ; the 
site of, Professor Goldwin Smith 
on, 122. 

Roosevelt on the War 'of 1812, 248. 

Roumania, how it came to be so 
called, 158. 

Russia asserted a claim to California, 
270. 

Russian America, the idea of the ac- 
cession of, broached, 273 ; treaty of 
cession of, 273. 

Russian treaty of 1824, the, 272. 

San Erancisco, 124; fine harbor of, 
194 ; Bay of, 96. 

San Lorenzo, the treaty of, 261. 

Santa Fe, when founded, 207. 

Savages, the superstition of, 102. 

Savannah, capture of, by the British, 
241 ; evacuation of, by the British, 
244. 

S chaff, Dr., quoted, 5. 

Schools of Berlin, elementary, 58. 

Schurman, Dr. J. G., on organism, 
104. 

Science, biological, 11 ; natural, as 
an aid to study, 36. 

Scotland, Calvinistic theology of, 
112. 

Scott, General, campaign of, in Mexi- 
co, 97. 

Secession, causes which led to, 309. 

Seeley, Brofessor, on history, 7, 46. 

Seminar, invention of, by the Ger- 
mans, 65. 

Seminary, historical, 39 ; proper func- 
tion of, 65. 

Sensation, bodily, 76. 

Sentiments and ideas, 133. 

Serapis, battle of the, with the Bon 
Homme Eichard, 241. 

Seven Years' War, 8. 

Shaier, Professor, on the depend- 
ence of man upon environment, 
135 ; on the contrast between the 
French and English colonies, 215 ; 
on the people of the English colo- 
nies, 217; on contest "in North 



America between the French and 
English, 229. 

Slavery, introduction of, 297 ; at the 
close of the Eevolution, 297 ; the 
economic advantages of, 299 ; 
economical defects of, 299 ; west- 
ward extension of, 305; political 
status of, 305 ; opinions concern- 
ing, 307; political opposition to, 
307 ; conditions affecting its culti- 
vation, 309 ; tends to discredit pro- 
ductive labor, 310. 

Smith, Captain John, story of, of in- 
terest to children, 49. 

Smith, Professor Goldwin, on the 
site of Eome, 122. 

Sociology, descriptive, 50. 

Socrates in the market place, 25. 

South Carolina nullifies laws pre- 
viously supported by her, 289. 

Southwestern accession of territory, 
96. " 

Spain, a country of strongly marked 
character, 168 ; failure of to plant 
her civilization in the West, 207 ; 
cedes Florida to England, 256 ; 
claimed the coast of California, 
270. 

Spaniards, the, in early American 
history, 207 ; in the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, 206. 

Spanish Peninsula, the, 115. 

Spencer, Herbert, criticises history 
as taught in the schools of Eng- 
land, 20; quoted, 49; method of, 
50, 70. 

Spinning jenny, invention of the, 
304. 

Stars and Stripes, the, 14. 

State, powers and duties of the, 327. 

States rights, fondness of Southern 
slaveholders for, 294. 

St. Augustine, when founded, 207. 

Steam, utilizing the power of, 286. 

Steamboat, the first, to descend the 
Mississippi, 280 ; the first, to ascend 
Lake Erie, 280. 

Stony Point, storming of, 240. 

Story in history, 48. 

Stubbs, Bishop, quoted, 9, 13. 

Studies in general, uses and values 
of, 2 ; instrumental, 2 ; guidance or 
information, 2; disciplinary, 3; 
culture, 3; mathematical, 9. 

Succession, the relation of, 76. 

Sumner, Professor, on the growth of 



346 



INDEX. 



our national dominion, 266; on 
the act of 1828, 290. 
Systems, industrial, 50. 

Taine, M., on physical causes that 

act in history, 113. 
Tariff, revenue, 288; legislation, 

288. 
Taxation, national, provisions of the 

Constitution in respect to, 324; 

powers of States relative to, 325. 
Taxes, kinds of, 324. 
Taylor, General, in the Mexican War, 

96. 
Teacher, function of the, 17; main 

function of the, 109 ; qualifica- 
tions of the, 138. 
Teachers of history, mental qualities 

required by, 141. 
Teaching, methods of, 53. 
Territorial growth of the United 

States, the, 253. 
Texas, annexation of, 96 ; history of, 

as a Territory, 267. 
Text-books, independence of, 65 ; of 

history, 28 ; analysis of matter in, 

65. 
Thirteen Colonies, the, 189, 233. 
Thirty Years' War, 19. 
Ticonderoga, construction of, 228. 
Time, or th~e chronological relation, 7. 
Time relations, 89. 
Topical method of study, 60. 
Topics, value of, 64. 
Tordesillas, the treaty of, 205. 
Toryism, effect of Lancashire mines 

on, 118. 
Treaties made by the United States 

with other powers, 253. 
Treatises on history, 32. 
Treaty of Paris, 86, 244 ; of Ghent, 

252 ; of San Lorenzo, 261 ; of 1803, 

264, 266; of 1818, 271. 
Turgot quoted, 104. 

Union Jack, the, 14. 

Union Pacific Eailroad, 194. 

United States of America, proposed 
name for, 189 ; comparative sizes 
of its physical divisions, 197; ter- 
ritorial expansion of, 202 ; treaties 
made by, with other powers, 253 ; 
negotiations of, at Paris, 253 ; ex- 



tent of, in 1783, 254; the original, 
255; first national boundaries of, 
255 ; title of, to territory west of 
the Eockies, 272; area of, with 
dates of acquisition, 276 ; indus- 
trial and political development, 
277 ; facilities of, for inland navi- 
gation, 278 ; the judicial power of, 
330. 
Upper California brought under 
American control, 96. 

Valley Forge, "Washington at, 239. 

Venice, the beginning of, 123. 

Vespucian voyages, account of, writ- 
ten by Vespucius to Lorenzo de 
Medici, 177. 

Virginia, original territory of, 187. 

Von Moltke quoted, 134. 

War, Seven Years', 8 ; of Independ- 
ence, 86 ; King William's, 85, 221 ; 
Queen Anne's, 222 ; King George's, 
223; French and Indian, 224; of 
1812, the, 245. 

Warfare, partisan, raging of, in 
Georgia, 242. 

Washington, George, mentioned, 45 ; 
efforts of, to defend New York, 
235 ; crosses the Delaware, 236 ; 
at Valley Forge, 239 ; disbands the 
Continental army, 244 ; the famous 
letter of, to Governor Harrison, 
282 ; on slavery, 298. 

Wayne, General Anthony, storms 
Stony Point, 240. 

Webster, Daniel, on government, 
319. 

Weeden, W. B., on economy, 33. 

Wells, J., on teaching history, 15. 

Welsh, the origin of the name, 168. 

West, early population of the, 279. 

Whig party, the, takes up the line 
of protection, 290. 

Whitney, Eli, inventor of the cotton 
gin, 304. 

Writers, pedagogical, 2. 

Writing an instrument of imparta- 
tion, 2. 

Yorktown, Cornwallis takes posses- 
sion of, 243 ; siege of, 243 ; surren- 
der of, 86, 244. 



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top, $2.50 each. 

In the course of this narrative much is written 
of wars, conspiracies, and rebellions ; of Presi- 
dents, of Congresses, of embassies, of treaties, 
of the ambition of political leaders, and of the 
rise of great parties in the nation. Yet the his- 
tory of the people is the chief theme. At every 
stage of the splendid progress which separates the 
America of Washington and Adams from the 
John bach mcmaster. America in which we live, it has been the au- 
thor's purpose to describe the dress, the occupa- 
tions, the amusements, the literary canons of the times ; to note the changes 
of manners and morals ; to trace the growth of that humane spirit which 
abolished punishment for debt, and reformed the discipline of prisons and 
of jails ; to recount the manifold improvements which, in a thousand ways, 
have multiplied the conveniences of life and ministered to the happiness of 
our race ; to describe the rise and progress of that long series of mechanical 
inventions and discoveries which is now the admiration of the world, and our 
just pride and boast ; to tell how, under the benign influence of liberty and 
peace, there sprang up, in the course of a single century, a prosperity unpar- 
alleled in the annals of human affairs. 

"The pledge given by Mr. McMaster, that 'the history of the people shall be the 
chief theme,' is punctiliously and satisfactorily fulfilled. He carries out his promise in 
a complete, vivid, and delightful way. We should add that the literary execution of 
the work is worthy of the indefatigable industry and unceasing vigilance with which 
the stores of historical material have been accumulated, weighed, and sifted. The 
cardinal qualities of style, lucidity, animation, and energy, are everywhere present. 
Seldom indeed has a book in which matter of substantial value has been so happily 
united to attractiveness of form been offered by an American author to his fellow- 
citizens." — New York Sun. 

"To recount the marvelous progress of the American people, to describe their life, 
their literature, their occupations, their amusements, is Mr. McMaster's object. His 
theme is an important one, and we congratulate him on his success. It has rarely been 
our province to notice a book with so many excellences and so few defects." — New York 
Herald. 

" Mr. McMaster at once shows his grasp of the various themes and his special 
capacity as a histoiian of the people. His aim is high, but he hits the mark." — 
New York Journal of Commerce. 

"... The author's pages abound, too, with illustrations of the best kind of histori- 
cal work, that of unearthing hidden sources of information and employing them, not 
after the modern style of historical writing, in a mere report, but with the true artistic 
method, in a well-digested narrative. ... If Mr. McMaster finishes his work in the 
spirit and with the thoroughness and skill with which it has begun, it will take its place 
among the classics of American literature." — Christian Union. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
APPLETONS' CYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN 

<*J- BIOGRAPHY. Complete in six volumes, royal 8vo, contain- 
ing about 800 pages each. With sixty-one fine steel portraits 
and some two thousand smaller vignette portraits and views of 
birthplaces, residences, statues, etc. 

Appletons' Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by Gen- 
eral James Grant Wilson, President of the New York Genealogical and 
Biographical Society, and Professor John Fiske, formerly of Harvard Uni- 
versity, assisted by over two hundred special contributors, contains a 
biographical sketch of every person eminent in American civil and military 
history, in law and politics, in divinity, in literature and art, in science and 
in invention. Its plan embraces all the countries of North and South 
America, and includes distinguished persons born abroad, but related to 
American history. As events are always connected with persons, it affords 
a complete compendium of American history in every branch of human 
achievement. An exhaustive topical and analytical Index enables the reader 
to follow the history of any subject with great readiness. 

"It is the most complete work that exists on the subject. The tone and guiding 
spirit of the book are certainly very fair, and show a mind bent on a discriminate, just, 
and proper treatment of its subject." — From the Hon. George Bancroft. 

" The portraits are remarkably good. To anyone interested in Amercan history 
or literature, the Cyclopaedia will be indispensable." — From the Hon. James Russell 
Lowell. 

"The selection of names seems to be liberal and just. The portraits, so far as I can 
judge, are faithful, and the biographies trustworthy." — From Noah Porter, D. D., 
LL. D., ex-President of Yale College. 

"A most valuable and interesting work." — From the Hon. Win. E. Gladstone. 

"I have examined it with great interest and great gratification. It is a noble work, 
and does enviable credit to its editors and publishers." — From the Hon. Robert C. 
Winthrop. 

"I have carefully examined 'Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography,' and 
do not hesitate to commend it to favor. It is admirably adapted to use in the family 
and the schools, and is so cheap as to come within the reach of all classes of readers 
and students." — From]. B. Foraker, ex-Governor 0/ Ohio. 

" This book of American biography has come to me with a most unusual charm. It 
sets before us the faces of great Americans, both men and women, and gives us a per- 
spective view of their lives. Where so many noble and great have lived and wrought, 
one is encouraged to believe the soil from which they sprang, the air they breathed, and 
the sky over their heads, to be the best this world affords, and one says, ' Thank God, 
1 also am an American ! ' We have many books of biography, but I have seen none 
so ample, so clear-cut, and breathing so strongly the best spirit of our native land. No 
young man or woman can fail to find among these ample pages some model worthy of 
imitation." — From Frances E. Willard, President N. W. C. T. U. 

"I congratulate you on the beauty of the volume, and the thoroughness of the 
work." — From Bishop Phillips Brooks. 

" Every day's use of this admirable work confirms me in regard to its comprehen- 
siveness and accuracy." — From Charles Dudley Warner. 

Price, per volume, cloth or buckram, $5.00; sheep, $6.00; half calf or hzlf mo- 
rocco, $7.00. Sold only by subscription. Descriptive circular, with specimen pages, 
sent on application. Agents wanted for districts not yet assigned. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., I, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

nTHE REAR-GUARD OF THE REVOLUTION. 
■*■ By James R. Gilmore (Edmund Kirke). With Portrait of 
John Sevier, and Map. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

'- The Rear-Guard of the Revolution " is a narrative of the adventures of the 
pioneers that first crossed the Alleghanies and settled in what is now Tennessee, under 
the leadership of two remarkable men, James Robertson and John Sevier. The title 
of the book is derived from the fact that a body of hardy volunteers, under the leader- 
ship of Sevier, crossed the mountains, and by their timely arrival secured the defeat 
of the British army at King's Mountain. 



J 



OHN SEVIER AS A COMMONWEALTH- 
BUILDER. A Sequel to "The Rear-Guard of the Revo- 
lution." By James R. Gilmore (Edmund Kirke). i2mo. 
Cloth, $1.50. 



John Sevier was among the pioneers who settled the region in Eastern Tennessee. 
He was the founder of the State of Franklin, which afterward became Tennessee, and 
was the first Governor of the State. His innumerable battles with the Indians, his re- 
markable exploits, his address and genius for leadership, render his career one of the 
most thrilling and interesting on record. 

HTHE ADVANCE-GUARD OF WESTERN 

JL CI VI LIZA TION. By James R. Gilmore (Edmund Kirke). 

With Map, and Portrait of James Robertson. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

This work is in a measure a continuation of the thrilling story told by the author in 
his two preceding volumes, "The Rear-Guard of the Revolution " and " John Sevier 
as a Commonwealth-Builder." The three volumes together cover, says the author 
in his preface, " a neglected period of American history, and they disclose facts well 
worthy the attention of historians — namely, that these Western men turned the tide 
of the American Revolution, and subsequently raved the newly-formed Union from 
disruption, and thereby made possible our present great republic." 

T^HE TWO SPIES: Nathan Hale and John Andr/. 
•*■ By Benson J. Lossing, LL. D. Illustrated with Pen-and-ink 

Sketches. Containing also Anna Seward's " Monody on Major 

Andre." Square 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, $2.00. 

Illustrated by nearly thirty engravings of portraits, buildings, sketches by Andre, 
etc. Contains also the full text and original notes of the famous " Monody on Majot 
Andre," written by his friend Anna Seward, with a portrait and biographical sketch 
of Miss Seward, and letters to her by Major Andre\ 



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F 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

ROM FLAG TO FLAG. A Woman's Adventures 
and Experiences in the South during the War, in Mexico, and 
in Cuba. By Eliza McHatton-Ripley. i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 



The author of this book was the wife of a planter in Louisiana, and underwent some 
remarkable experiences in the first part of the war; later in Mexico, many vicissitudes 
•befell her; and of her life in Cuba, still later, she has a striking and unusual story to tell. 

" In a word, the book is an account of personal adventures which would be called 
extraordinary did not one remember that the civil war must have brought simiiar ones 
to many. Her hardships are endured with the rarest pluck and good humor, and 
her shifty way of meeting difficulties seems almost to point to a Yankee strain in her 
blood." — The Nation. 



T 



'HE HISTORY OF A SLAVE. By H. H. John- 
ston, author of "The Kilimanjaro Expedition, etc. With 47 
full-page Illustrations, engraved fac-simile from the author's 
Drawings. Large i2mo. Paper cover, 50 cents. 



" 'The History of a Slave' is a work of fiction based upon every-day occurrences 
in the Dark Continent, and well calculated to bring home to the reader the social 
condition of heathen and Mohammedan Africa, and the horrors of a domestic slave- 
trade." — The Atheneeum. 



T 



HE MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN ERIN- 
CESS. By Emily Ruete, ne'e Princess of Oman and Zanzibar. 
Translated from the German. i2mo. Cloth, 75 cents. 



The author of this amusing autobiography is half-sister to the late Sultan of Zanzi- 
bar, who some years ago married a German merchant and settled at Hamburg. 

"A remarkably interesting little volume. . . . As a picture of Oriental court life, 
and manners and customs in the Orient, by one who is to the manor born, the book is 
prolific in entertainment and edification." — Boston Gazette. 

(SKETCHES FROM MY LIFE. By the late Admiral 
**-) Hobart Pasha. With a Portrait. i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; 
cloth, $1.00. 

"The sailor is nearly always an adventurous and enterprising variety of the human 
species, and Hobart Pasha was about as fine an example as one could wish to see. . . 
The sketches of South American life are full of interest. The sport, the inevitable 
entanglements of susceptible middies with beautiful Spanish girls and the sometimes 
disastrous consequences, the duels, attempts at assassination, and other adventures and 
amusements, are described with much spirit. . . . The sketches abound in interesting 
details of the American war." — London Atheneeum. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Kond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

JO THAN ALLEN. The Robin Hood of Vermont 

J—* By Henry Hall. i2tno. Cloth, $i.oa 

The aim of the author has been to depict Allen's personality, and to 
throw some new light upon the character of one who has been often vio- 
lently assailed. Allen's own letters have been freely drawn upon. The 
mass of material which has been examined has included matter not utilized 
before, and the result is an impartial and careful picture of Allen's associa- 
tions, and habits of thought and action, which, it is believed, can not be 
neglected by Americans interested in the history of their own country. 

" A spirited account of a forcible and influential character in our colonial and Revolu- 
tionary history. Ethan Allen certainly was a picturesque figure in his day, and his 
checkered career would afford a good foundation for a sensational novel." — Congre- 
gationalist. 

"A welcome addition to American historical literature. The hero of Ticonderoga 
lives again in this graphic portrayal of the incidents and adventures of his eventful 
life. Ethan Allen is one of the most picturesque of the sturdy patriots of Revolution- 
ary days. . . . Accurate to the last degree, and told in bright, telling language, the 
stoiy should be widely read by the young, who may gather from the perusal of the 
book patriotic inspiration, and see how to live in touch with one's times and answer 
their demands. " — New York Observer. 

" Ethan Allen was not a polished drawing-room knight or a pious churchman. He 
swore terribly, and he was looked upon as a dangerous atheist. But no one now 
thinks of the manners or the piety of the man who, with eighty-three men, entered 
Fort Ticonderoea and summoned the British commander of the garrison to sur- 
render." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

" A brief, sketchy, lively, entertaining biography of one of the most remarkable 
men in our early national history. . . ." — Chicago Times. 



T 



HE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF WILLIAM 

MACLA Y, United States Senator from Pennsylvania, 1789- 
1791. With Portrait from Original Miniature. Edited by 
Edgar S. Maclay, A. M. Large 8vo. Cloth, $2.25. 

" In Mr. Maclay's time sessions of the Senate were held with closed doors, and the 
authentic records we have of its proceedings are meager. As Mr. Maclay's journal is 
concerned almost wholly with the proceedings of this body, its value as a record be- 
comes very great. Students of the period must henceforth include it among their 
valuable sources of original information. The circumstances in which it was written 
give it peculiar value. Mr. Maclay wrote while his knowledge was still fresh and 
clear." — New York Times. , 

"So meager are the official reports of the doings of the first Congress after the 
adoption of the Constitution, that Mr. Maclay's journal must always be of great 
historical value. While Senator, he recorded in his journal each evening the proceed- 
ings of the day, and these records, many of them voluminous, give the book its 
value." — New York Herald. 

" No elaborate book on the political and social status of a hundred years ago can 
begin to equal in interest the present one, with its daily fresh pictures — plainly pro- 
jected upon the writer's journal for his own mental relief— of the bad manners and bad 
political and other morals of his fellow-legislators, such as leave to politicians of our 
day quite a balance often of propriety in any comparison that may be made. It is a 
mine as well of political faith and proposed practice in plain democratic methods, ante- 
dating nearly all the political doctrine that Jefferson is celebrated for as the founder of 
Jeffersonian, Madisonian, and Jackson ian Democracy." — Brooklyn Eagle. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: The True Story of a Great 
***■ LIFE. By William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik. 
With numerous Illustrations. New and revised edition, with 
an introduction by Horace White. In two volumes. i2rao. 
Cloth, $3.00. 
This is probably the most intimate life of Lincoln ever written. The 
book, by Lincoln's law-partner, William H. Herndon, and his friend Jesse 
W. Weik, shows us Lincoln the man. It is a true picture of his surround- 
ings and influences and acts. It is not an attempt to construct a political 
history, with Lincoln often in the background, nor is it an effort to apotheo- 
size the American who stands first in our history next to Washington. The 
writers knew Lincoln intimately. Their book is the result of unreserved 
association. There is no attempt to portray the man as other than he really 
was, and on this account their frank testimony must be accepted, and their 
biography must take permanent rank as the best and most illuminating study 
of Lincoln's character and personality. Their story, simply told, relieved 
by characteristic anecdotes, and vivid with local color, will be found a fasci- 
nating work. 

"Truly, they who wish to know Lincoln as he really was must read the biography 
of him written by his friend and law-partner, W. H. Herndon. This book was im- 
peratively needed to brush aside the rank growth of myth and legend which was 
threatening to hide the real lineaments of Lincoln from the eyes of posterity. On one 
pretext or another, but usually upon the plea that he was the central figure of a great 
historical picture, most of his self-appointed biographers have, by suppressing a part 
of the truth and magnifying or embellishing the rest, produced portraits which those of 
Lincoln's contemporaries who knew him best are scarcely able to recognize. There is, 
on the other hand, no doubt about the faithfulness of Mr. Herndon's delineation. The 
marks of unflinching veracity are patent in every line." — New York Sii?i. 

"Among the books which ought most emphatically to have been written must be 
classed 'Herndon's Lincoln.'" — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

" The author has his own notion of what a biography should be, and it is simple 
enough. The story should tell all, plainly and even bluntly. Mr. Herndon is naturally 
a very direct writer, and he has been industrious in gathering material. Whether an 
incident happened before or behind the scenes, is all the same to him. He gives it 
without artifice or apology. He describes the life of his friend Lincoln just as he saw 
it." — Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. 

" A remarkable piece of literary achievement — remarkable alike for its fidelity to 
facts, its fullness of details, its constructive skill, and its literary charm." — New York 
Times. 

" It will always remain the authentic life of Abraham Lincoln." — Chicago Herald. 

"The book is a valuable depository of anecdotes, innumerable and characteristic. 
It has every claim to the proud boast of being the ' true story of a great life.' " — Phila- 
delphia Ledger. 

"Will be accepted as the best biography yet written of the great President." — 
Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

"Mr. White claims that, as a portraiture of the man Lincoln, Mr. Herndon's work 
'will never be surpassed.' Certainly it has never been equaled yet, and this new edi- 
tion is all that could be desired." — New York Observer. 

" The three portraits of Lincoln are the best that exist ; and not the least charac- 
teristic of these, the Lincoln of the Douglas debates, has never before been engraved. 
. . . Herndon's narrative gives, as nothing else is likely to give, the material from 
which we may form a true picture of the man from infancy to maturity." — The Nation, 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



T 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 



"HE SOVEREIGNS AND COURTS OE 

EUROPE. The Home and Court Life and Characteristics of 
the Reigning Families. By " Politikos." With many Por- 
traits. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" A remarkably able book. . . . A great deal of tbe inner history of Europe is to be 
found in the work, and it is illustrated by admirable portraits."— 1 he Athenceum. 

" Its chief merit is that it gives a new view of several sovereigns. . . . The anony- 
mous author seems to have soarces of information that are not open to the foieign 
correspondents who generally try to convey the impression that they aie on terms of 
intimacy with royalty." — San Francisco Chronicle. 

"A most entertaining volume, which is evidently the work of a singularly well-in- 
formed writer. The vivid descriptions of the home and court life of the various royalties 
convey exactly the knowledge of character and the means of a personal estimate which 
will be valued by intelligent readers." — Toronto Mail. 

"The anonymous author of these sketches of the reigning sovereigns of Europe 
appears to have gathered a good deal of curious information about their private lives, 
manners, and customs, and has certainly in several instances had access to unusual 
sources. The result is a volume which furnishes views of the kings and queens con- 
cerned, far fuller and more intimate than can be found elsewhere." — New York Tribune. 

"... A book that would give the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth 
(so far as such comprehensive accuracy is possible), about these exalted personages, so 
often heard about but so seldom seen by ordinaiy mortals, was a desideratum, and this 
book seems well fitted to satisfy the demand. The author is a well-known writer on 
questions indicated by his pseudonym." — Montreal Gazette. 

" A very handy book of reference. ' — Boston Transcript. 



M 



Y CANADIAN JOURNAL, i872-'r8. By Lady 

Dufferin, author of " Our Vice-Regal Life in India." Extracts 
from letters home written while Lord Dufferin was Governor- 
General of Canada. With Portrait, Map, and Illustrations from 
sketches by Lord Dufferin. i2mo. Cloth, $2.00. 

" A graphic and intensely interesting portraiture of out-door life in the Dominion, 
and will become, we are confident, one of the standard works on the Dominion. . . . 
It is a charming volume." — Boston Traveller. 

" In every place and under every condition of circumstances the Marchioness shows 
herself to be a true lady, without reference to her title. Her book is most entertaining, 
and the abounding good-humor of every page must stir a sympathetic spirit in its read- 
ers." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

"A very pleasantly written record of social functions in which the author was the 
leading figure ; and many distinguished persons, Americans as well as Canadians, pass 
across the gayly decorated stage. The author is a careful observer, and jots down her 
impressions of people and their ways with a frankness that is at once entertaining and 
amusing." — Book-Buyer. 

"The many readers of Lady Dufferin's Journal of" Our Vice-Regal Life in India" 
will welcome this similar record from the same vivacious pen, although it concerns a 
period antecedent to the other, and takes one back many years. The book consists of 
extracts from letters written home by Lady Dufferin to her friends (her mother chiefly), 
while her husband was Governor-General of Canada; and describes her experiences in 
the same chatty and charming style with which readers were before made familiar."— » 
Cincinnati Commercial- Gazette. 



New York: D. APPLETON & CO., i, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HTHE GILDED MAN {EL DORADO), and other 
•*■ Pictures of the Spanish Occupancy of America. By A. F. 
Bandelier. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

The author here describes the adventures and romantic episodes attendant 
upon the early Spanish explorations of our Southwest. The scene of the 
story which gives its title to the volume is laid in Venezuela, and the legend 
of El Dorado is for the first time told accurately in popular form. With this 
exception the tales relate to our own country. They include the stories of 
the mysterious " Seven Cities of Cibola," " El Quivira," and others of equal 
dramatic interest and historical value. 

TJZARRIORS OF THE CRESCENT. By W. 
* * H. Davenport Adams, author of " Battle Stories from Eng- 
lish History," etc. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" A work without a rival in its particular field. . . . All the gorgeousness of the 
barbaric East invests this glowing pageant of kings and conquerors. . . . This is a re- 
markably able book in thought and in manner of presentation." — Philadelphia Ledger. 

"A lively, carefully prepared chronicle of the careers of quite a number of the Mo- 
hammedan rulers in Asian regions who made their marks, one way or another, in the 
development of the peculiar civilization of the East. . . . This author has selected from 
the long chronicle the salients likely to be most interesting, and has obviously taken 
much pains to sift the fact carefully out of the rather confused mass of fact and fable in 
the Moslem chronicles." — Neiv York Com?nercial Advertiser. 

"Nowhere in history are there to be found such records of conquest, such frightful 
tales of blood, such overwhelming defeats or victories, as in the lives of the Asiatic 
sovereigns. . . . The author is a historian who tells his story and stops. He has done 
his work faithfully and well." — Cincinnati Com?nercial Gazette. 

DICTURES FROM ROMAN LIFE AND STOR Y. 
•*- By Professor A. J. Church, author of " Stories from Homer," 
" Stories from Virgil," etc. Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

"Prof. Church is a tried and approved master of the art of interesting young people 
in historical themes. The present work, while too thoughtful to be called strictly juve- 
nile, treats of the great emperors and families of Rome in a simple narrative style cer- 
tain to captivate youth and older people fond of historic lore." — The Chautauquan. 

" In the thirty-six chapters comprised in the book there are as many stories, each 
begun and ended with the chapter. There are no long and tedious accounts. The 
reader gets the salient points of history. . . . Books of this kind have a special value 
by inducting young people into a love of historical reading and study." — San Fran- 
cisco Bulletin. 

"The material for these sketches is drawn partly from the inexhaustible riches of 
Plutarch, partly from contemporaneous history, and partly from letters, edicts, etc. ; 
and, well chosen and briefly related, are interesting, whetting the appetite of the stu- 
diously inclined. . . . Various illustrations add to the interest of the work."— Spring- 
field Republican. 

" Each of the chapters presents some striking scene or personality in the period from 
Augustus to Marcus Aurelius. . . . Several of the chapters are thrown into the form 
of contemporary letters. The plan of the book is well conceived, and the subjects are 
those of general human interest." — New York Critic. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., i } 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

T IFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA. 
-*-— ' By G. Maspero, late Director of Archaeology in Egypt, and 
Member of the Institute of France. Translated by Alice 
Morton. With 188 Illustrations. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

" A lucid sketch, at once popular and learned, of daily life in Egypt in the time oi 
Rameses II, and of Assyria in that of Assurbanipal. . . . As an Orientalist, M. Mas- 
pero stands in the front rank, and his learning is so well digested and so admirably sub- 
dued to the service of popular exposition, that it nowhere overwhelms and always in- 
terests the reader." — Loudon Times. 

" Only a writer who had distinguished himself as a student of Egyptian and As- 
syrian antiquities could have produced this work, which has none of the features of a 
modern book of travels in the East, but is an attempt to deal with ancient life as if one 
had been a contemporary with the people whose civilization and social usages are 
very largely restored." — Boston Herald. 

A most interesting and instructive book. Excellent and most impressive ideas, 
also of the architecture of the two countries and of the other rude but powerful art of 
the Assyrians, are to be got from it."— Brooklyn Eagle. 

" The ancient artists are copied with the utmost fidelity, and verify the narrative so 
attractively presented." — Cincinnati Times-Star. 

7 HE THREE PROPHETS: Chinese Gordon; 
Mohammed-Ahmed ; Araby Pasha. Events before, during, 
and after the Bombardment of Alexandria. By Colonel 
Chaille-Long, ex-Chief of Staff to Gordon in Africa, ex- 
United States Consular Agent in Alexandria, etc., etc. With 
Portraits. i6mo. Paper, 50 cents. 
"Comprises the observations of a man who, by reason of his own military ex- 
perience in Egypt, ought to know whereof he speaks." — Washington Post. 

" The book contains a vivid account of the massacres and the bombardment of Alex- 
andria. As throwing light upon the darkened problem of Egypt, this American 
contribution is both a useful reminder of recent facts and an estimate of present situa- 
tions." — Philadelphia Public Ledger. 

" Throws an entirely new light upon the troubles which have so long agitated 
Egypt, and upon their real significance." — Chicago Times. 

7 HE MEMOIRS OF AN ARABIAN PRIN- 
CESS. By Emily Ruete, ne'e Princess of Oman and Zanzi- 
bar. Translated from the German. i2mo, Cloth, 75 cents. 
The author of this amusing autobiography is half-sister to the late Sul- 
tan of Zanzibar, who some years ago married a German merchant and settled 
at Hamburg. 

"A remarkably interesting little volume. . . . As a picture of Oriental court life, 
and manners and customs in the Orient, by one who is to the manner born, the book is 
prolific in entertainment and edification." — Boston Gazette. 

"The interest of the book centers chieflv in its minute description of the daily life 
of the household from the time of rising until the time of retiring, giving the most com- 
plete details of dress, meals, ceremonies, feasts, weddings, funerals, education, 
slave service, amusements, in fact everything connected with the daily and yearly 
routine of life." — Utica (IV. V.) Herald. 



New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3. & 5 Bond Street. 



D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

'J^HE STORY OF MY LIFE. By Georg Ebers, 

J- author of " Uarda," " An Egyptian Princess," " A Thorny Path," 

etc. With Portraits. i6mo. Cloth, $1.25. 

For many years Dr. Ebers has kept his hold upon the reading public and 
has strengthened it with every book. But the personality of this creator of 
the romance of the past has until now been veiled. The author here tells of 
his student life in Germany, his association with movements like that for 
the establishment of kindergarten training, his acquaintance with men like 
Froebel and the brothers Grimm, his experiences in the revolutionary 
period, his interest in Egyptology and the history of ancient Greece and 
Rome, and the beginnings of his literary career. It is a book of historical 
as well as personal interest. 

" It is written with a charming frankness that is peculiarly German, and an appre- 
ciation of the incidents of his life that is peculiar to the novelist. Few of his stories 
afford more agreeable reading." — New York Critic. 

" To those who know Dr. Ebers chiefly as an Egyptologist, and whose interest 
lies in his imaginative work, the early chapters of this autobiography will prove a 
source of illumination, for it is in them that we are let into the secrets of those experi- 
ences which not only molded his character, but were potent in shaping the bent of his 
mind." — Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. 

" One of the most delightful books which Georg Ebers, the German Egyptologist 
and novelist, has written, and this is saying a great deal. ... It is the picture of the 
life of a bright, active, happy boy in a German home of the most worthy sort, and at 
German schools mostly of conspicuous excellence. There is neither undue frankness 
nor superfluous reticence, but the things which one wishes to be told are recorded 
naturally and entertainingly." — Boston Congregationalist. 

nTHE BRONTES IN IRELAND. By Dr. Wil- 

■*■ li am Wright. i2mo. Cloth. 

This book presents a new and thrilling page in the family history of the 
Bronte sisters. It tells of foundling and the evil which he wrought to his 
benefactors ; of an innocent child taken from his family, whom he never 
saw again, to a life of slavery ; of the Homeric battles of Irish peasantry ; 
and it pictures Charlotte Bronte's uncle as he prepared a new blackthorn 
and crossed to England to wreak Irish vengeance upon a malicious 
reviewer of " Jane Eyre." It is a book of absorbing interest. 

ERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF WERNER 

VON SIEMENS. Translated by W. C. Coupland. 8vo. 
Cloth. 

In two very different fields — the application of heat and the application 
of electricity — Herr von Siemens gained pre-eminent distinction by his rare 
combination of scientific insight and power of practical utilization of his 
knowledge. It was he — although Wheatstone and Varley's discoveries were 
simultaneous— who invented the dynamo-electric machine which became the 
basis of the modern Siemens-dynamo developed by Edison, Hopkinson, and 
others. He designed the ccean-cable ship Faraday ; an electric railway, 
and an electric furnace were amons: others of his inventions ; and in this 
day of electrical progress the autobiography of this great electrician will 
possess a pertinent and exceptional interest. 



P 



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D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS 



HE HISTORICAL REFERENCE-BOOK, com- 
prising a Chronological Table of Universal History, a Chrono- 
logical Dictionary of Universal History \ a Biographical Dic- 
tionary. With Geographical Notes. For the use of Students, 
Teachers, and Readers. By Louis Heilprin. Fourth edition, 
revised and brought down to 1893. Crown 8vo. 569 pages. 
Half leather, $3.00. 

'* One of the most complete, compact, and valuable works of reference yet pro- 
duced." — Troy Daily Times. 

" Unequaled in its field." — Boston Courier. 

" A small library in itself." — Chicago Dial. 

" An invaluable book of reference, useful alike to the student and the general reader. 
The arrangement could scarcely be better or more convenient." — New York Herald. 

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within the space." — Philadelphia American. 

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able to detect a single mistake or misprint."— New York Nation. 

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out flaw." — Christian Union. 

" The conspicuous merits of the work are condensation and accuracy. These points 
alone should suffice to give the ' Historical Reference-Book ' a place in every public 
and private library." — Boston Beacon. 

"The method of the tabulation is admirable for ready reference." — New York 
Home Journal. 

"This cyclopaedia of condensed knowledge is a work that will speedily become a 
necessity to the general reader as well as to the student." — Detroit Free tress. 

"For clearness, correctness, and the readiness with which the reader can find the 
information of which he is in search, the volume is far in advance of any work of its 
kind with which we are acquainted." — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette. 

" The geographical notes which accompa7iy the historical incidents are a novel 
addition, and exceedingly helpful. The size also commends it, making it convenient 
for constant reference, while the three divisions and careful elimination of minor and 
uninteresting incidents make it much easier to find dates and events about which ac- 
curacy is necessary. Sir William Hamilton avers that too retentive a memory tends 
to hinder the development of the judgment by presenting too much for decision. A 
work like this is thus better than memory. It is a ' mental larder ' which needs no care, 
and whose contents are ever available." — New York University Quarterly. 

A CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF UNIVERSAL 

•** HISTORY. Extending from the Earliest Times to the Year 

1892. For the use of Students, Teachers, and Readers. By 

Louis Heilprin. i2mo. 200 pages. Cloth, $1.25. 

This is one of the three sections comprised in Heilprin's "Historical 

Reference-Book, " bound separately for convenience of those who may not 

require the entire volume. Specimen pages sent on request. 

New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street. 



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